This one all started with me messing around with various trees and root images. I’ve had this hot air balloon image in one or two other pieces, but otherwise have not used it much. But I wanted something interesting sprouting out of the roots with some vertical motion. Using a normal balloon image wasn’t quite right, but this hot air balloon really hit the mark for me. I still don’t love the name, so I’ll change it if I come up with something better.
Overall, I prefer the green, grey and black color treatment, but I did end up with some other color variations I liked as well (all included below).