Birth of the Homunculus

Whenever ideas for paintings come to me, they tend to come finished. That is, I have a very clear picture of what the final piece could look like. This painting has been floating around in my head for months now, and I only found the right time to bring it to fruition yesterday. For this one, it was no different: her pose and expression, and the awkward anatomy of the homunculus (plus emphasis on his butt) were all there from the get-go.
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However, I consider painting (or any creative endeavor) to be a "translation" from mind to object and, like any translation, it is rarely–if ever–"perfect". When I originally imagined this piece, the homunculus was blue. Only as I began rendering that I decided to leave his skin as untextured clay. The lighting also came during the process: I found a good reference and started painting her hands first, when it immediately struck me... the hands being the only parts of the body directly lit, emphasizes them as the tools of creation and, I think, elevates the storytelling.
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A creator, the act of creation and her creature. It should come as no surprise: I felt deeply connected to the characters while creating this.
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Scroll down for a shot-by-shot procress.
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This was painted for Omios Ures, my RPG and weird fantasy world.