Modern Sweethearts WIP

I'm back, for the moment at least. I'm working on a series of illustrations based on a painting style I developed back when I first started using PS. Here's the first which still needs some love before its done. I also need to do a print test to see if it prints well.

Modern Sweetheart
Inspirations - a painting from a waiting room (colours) and victorian pendants
Today and yesterday, CS5

Year's End

Happy New Year one and all. Hope you had a good time last night and I hope your hangovers are not too difficult to deal with today. I've decided to do a big post to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another; the following will have bits and pieces from my backlog of art that I never got around to posting as well as what I consider the best of the year. Thank you to everyone who's visited this blog over the course of 2011! I look forward to the beginnings of 2012!

Backlog

Dec 30th 

Draw this while waiting for my plane to board. About 15 minutes, no references. I think it's pretty obvious that I had a big anime phase as a kid; her eyes are huge, haha. Clearly my favourite way of passing the time is drawing pretty ladies, because honestly, what else do people do with their time? Watch TV? Pfft.

Inspirations - an article in Times magazine

Dec 27 or 28th

While at home (Houston with the parents) I read an interesting article in Times discussing how there hasn't been a major shift in clothing over the last 20 years, which greatly contradicts the historical patterns. I have my own theories about this (including that fact that my generation has had everything handed to us on a silver platter, case in point: hipsters) but I found it interesting that no one's really tried to make a new style of clothing for the modern era. This is my take. Sci-fi infused clothing with poofy pants because skinny jeans, and jeans as a whole, need to go die in a fire. They're SO OLD and BORING. We really need a new pant style.

 

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

August 2011

A friend of mine Kat (you can find her under wkobra on dA and blogspot) had a theme drawing week where each day we had to do at least one drawing (doodle to full illustration) based off of the day's theme. I did Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander for films. Moderately successful; her mouth is off, as is the overall length of her face. Single colour and opacity on a white background.

Inspirations - birds, masks, blood
April 2011
4 layers, black background, white, two red (blood on hands and background red). I find it a lot easier to draw by thinking about form and then shaping it than line + fill. This was done by blocking everything out with white and then erasing to get the proper shape. This is related to All Hail; the mark at the bottom is one of my signatures (I go by "black koi" on a few websites).

Regina - Ghosts by Ibsen

Inspirations - taken primarily from a close reading of the text. The historical accuracy is so horribly off. Hair inspired by Wendy from Disney's Peter Pan.

January 2011

Watercolour, ink, pencil

1 of 2 illustrations for a class assignment back in January, Regina from Ibsen's Ghosts. I'm a huge fan of Ibsen, his work is so detailed and really lends itself to bold visual interpretations. The focus for Regina was that she was Oswald's "light" to save him from his venereal disease, she is, however, a child and cannot do these things for him. She's supposed to be a mild-mannered young woman, but she is easily tempted (flash of red after a certain scene). I'd like to revisit this design and make it more accurate (bustle is so off).

Oswald - Ghosts by Ibsen

Inspirations - same as Regina, Japanese kimono

January 2011

Watercolour, ink, pencil

2 or 2. Oswald is a failed painter whose primary characteristic is that his views are clouded and that he can no longer paint like he used to, at first this just seems like an artistic block but it is revealed that he's dying of syphilis like his late father. Red (lust) hidden by his artistic persona, a persona which is clouded (print on kimono). In the text he wears a smoking coat. I changed this to a kimono; they were trendy at the time. Colours to match Regina suggesting a connection between the two.

Summer 2010 - 2011

This was the first thing I drew when I started using photoshop. As I learned more about the program I worked on it more and more. I still visit it every so often to tweak things. A lot of it was just experimenting with brushes, painting styles, and the general mechanics of the program, which is why different parts are done in different methods. Painted over an old sketch from February 2010. Also related to All Hail, Alia from a previous post.

Faves of the Year

I'll hopefully be drawing some new things over the next week. I've got a week before school starts (yay!) but first I have to do some design work for my parents.

Another mini-update

Slowly finishing:

See Sept 17th's post for previous version.

Finally got the skirt working. It took a long time to figure out the right balance, but now I love it. Once this is done it's being added into the "most likely used for future portfolios" with Geisha Cleo. The colour palette on the side is barely accurate anymore.

Mini-(up)date

Here's a WIP. Currently stuck on the skirt pattern. The whole design started when I thought of a skirt with that pattern but I'm not sure if I like it with the rest of the outfit.

Inspirations - Art nouveau, Victorian clothing (no period specifically), the pattern on the skirt, harlot characters, fans

Sept 15-16

Started with the skirt pattern and colours and got stuck. Ho-hum. Definitely one of the most complex designs thus far and not normally me. I'm liking it but need to get the skirt to work. Ideally her ankles would show, but I do love how Victorian skirts hit and lightly touch the floor. Choices, choices. 

Bit of a joke: If this was for a movie, this would be such Oscar bait. Vaguely Victorian inspired theatrical costumes for sexually active and angsty women! How could the Academy not fall madly in love and declare them the best costumes of the year! Iamahorribleperson.