No really, it is madness. The topic of my project, that is.
For my concept illustration class, we had to choose one of four states of mind, which were love, joy, fear, and madness. After choosing, we were given the freedom of illustrating anything we want that represents whichever state we chose. More than half the class chose madness. Seriously, how do you illustrate joy or love? Well, I'm sure it isn't that hard, but it's easier to illustrate something for crazy states of mind. That being said, I chose madness as well.

I decided to go down a somewhat straightforward route of some guy going crazy. His unsettling thoughts are spewing out of his head and are trapping him. The thoughts wrapping around him can represent the idea of a straightjacket, a sort of restraint. He's going "crazy out of his mind".

I took pictures as I was working on it. All the line work and bold areas are done in pen and ink. I used a little bit of an ink wash in the patterned areas, and the background is done in watercolor pencils, with a little bit of colored pencils to smooth it out. That's all. Easy shmeasy.
The background in my final isn't as yellow as it appears in the bottom photo.

Here's a My Bloody Valentine song. One of my favorites actually. I love shoegaze; I love the dreamy atmosphere it gives off. Shoegaze, I personally feel, is a perfect soundtrack to Springtime. So with Spring approaching, I can't wait to put these bands on repeat.