I FORGOT that this sketch is so close to completion, so I can finally finish this painting. Whoopsie! Anyway, thought I should post because I also miraculously still love it. After I finish up the piece I’m working on, I may take a ZBrush detour, but then it’s all about this baby!
Here is a very Sky Doll-inspired costume design I did for my final project in Costume Figure Drawing with Charles Hu (at Gnomon – wheeee! very fun class!). It’s a mash-up of evil queens, Renaissance/Elizabethan, Chinese wedding headdresses, sci-fi and such and was a preeeeeetty awesome open final project.
If you’re not familiar with Sky Doll, it’s a fantastic Franco-Belgian comic by the amazing team Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa BUT Marvel also translated it into English. If you like comics with amazing art and colors, then I think you might like it.
For the record, Anne Boleyn did NOT have blue eyes. They were dark brown, often described as “black”. But, the painting didn’t pop the same way with brown eyes, sorry.
I was looking at tattoo art today and then made this instead of doing homework. :)
All Photoshop…I love drawing with ballpoint pens and was going for that.
This was done for week one of Tim McBurnie’s Drawing for Comics class that I’m taking right now. I’d like to fix up a few things on this sketch, clean it up and put in some color eventually.
It’s of dear Anne, of course, riding her horse and looking haughty. I’m taking the class to focus on my pet project a bit more and so far it’s awesome.
A noblewoman toasts…more coloring practice. Ballpoint pen on paper, colored in Photoshop.
Another. Trying a more painterly approach. 100% Photoshop.
Character designs for my project, the Field (from left to right): Anne Boleyn, Henry Percy, Francois I of France, Mary Boleyn, and Henry VIII of England.
Nope not new, and it’s not blue or borrowed, either. I haven’t posted in a while, not because I don’t want to, but because I am working on some Tudor sketches (which I shall discuss later when they are ready, and not here where I’m feeling compelled to gush about them in an unrelated entry), which should be posted soon. I spent a lot of the weekend coloring.
So I’ve decided in between posting new work that CLEARLY I should be posting old work that’s just sitting around hoping I’ll look at it again. BECAUSE OMIGOSH I HAVE SO MUCH OF IT.
THIS drawing I did in 2010. I never liked how the bottom of her hair came out…it’s too swirly dumb and graphic against the more hilariously epic realistic drapery that I do like. But I forgive it.
I don’t care if it’s a cheesy romance and probably entirely unlike Veronica Franco’s real life. I enjoy the movie Dangerous Beauty. For one, we get to see poor Murron from Braveheart alive and well as a fiery redhead. And then mainly, I find the movie’s interpretation of Renaissance-period courtesan-wear to be extremely fun.
YES, cortigiana onesta (“intellectual courtesans” vs. their more street-walking counterparts, the cortigiana di lume) should be considered more as geisha and would not have worn arm-baring sleeves or shocked the nobility by wearing overskirts without underskirts…well, I’d assume in public, anyway. The scene where Veronica is at court with everyone because the French king has come for a political meeting/really just wants to bag one of these famed courtesans is one of the times where the weirdness of this stands out, but far be it for me to judge creative exploration in what I find a fun, frivolous little film romp.
And because, orange dress!
Marco has just told her if she scrapes any lower she’ll have shoes for earrings. PUH-LEASE! Have fun listening to your wife recite the Psalms, Marco.
Props to this lovely blogger of Costume Captures, whose site is where I borrowed this image, and has done such a nice job capturing a lot of the main costumes from the film. I have loved this dress since I was about 15. So I’m making one! There is literally no reason for me to be doing this, so I will probably languish over the project to my little heart’s content and will post progress as I go.
To inaugurate the project, allow me to show you my fabric and trim collection for this. There is enough stuff here to design about eight dresses, so consider this like a mood board. It will not all be used on this project, but it all inspires me!
My typical first muslin usually goes down something along the lines of, how the h*** did I screw this up so badly? But, that’s okay. I just usually have to do few, so here’s some before and afters of my bodice muslin. It’s so baggy in the bust (go crappy Simplicity pattern I started out with and tweaked), but then you can see where it’s pinned back into shape and later marked up for tracing.
Courtney Trowbridge 