Steampunk Playing Cards part 1.

 “Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.”

George R. R. Martin, "A Game of Thrones"

For some strange and unexplained reason I'm working mostly on graphic designs and environment/architectural designs, which means that I'm using only pens/pencils and graphic tablet on daily basis.
As the time went by I began to suspect, that I'm going to forget how to make watercolor illustrations until one day...
a proposal from one of the leading Polish card manufacturer ("Trefl") came.
The offer concerned making set of cards in a Steampunk style. Handmade, watercolor technique, victorian aesthetics, steampunk subjects - PERFECT!
Some of my previously done artworks were also welcome to be part of the deck (ie "Train", "Steampunk Landscape").


Working process started with thinking (what a surprise!).

CONCLUSION 1 - Jokers could be presented as goblins, Aces as buildings, Kings could be portrayed as bearded guys, Queens as cute ladies (congrats Evi, how unusual) and Jacks could be robots. After discussion with the client  we decided to put vehicles on cards with numbers.

CONCLUSION 2 - each color could be designed as a different...how to put it right... subculture?
hearts would be members of the "upper classes" , clubs should be inventors/researchers fascinated with steampunk technical achievements, spades could be pirates or sea travelers and diamonds could be a charming mix of goths and dandies with a touch of decadence.

That's just a little sample of what you can expect to see in the deck. Next posts will reveal more :)

Female Portraits

How about making an exercise from painting female characters with watercolors? Yaaay!

To be honest watercolors aren't the easiest technique of making portraits. Drawing realistic people requires a very high level of accuracy, while watercolor technique is quite often perceived as series of "controlled accidents". When I googled "watercolor portraits", the vast major of searching results presented a very painterly style - sort of unfinished faces with colorful splashes around them. But the good news is that there were also a few extremely accurate artworks! 

This exercise was made in a way I usually paint buildings. The only difference was that this time I decided to follow strictly photo references (most of my buildings are painted totally from imagination). Special thanks to stock models: http://faestock.deviantart.com/ http://nastiaosipovastock.deviantart.com/  http://mirish.deviantart.com/ and http://chirinstock.deviantart.com/ !

The first step is a pencil sketch. The more accurate it is, the easier it will be to paint over it with watercolors. Tool: a mechanical pencil (0.5 mm, lead hardness H) - it should prevent from smearing. Luckily I chose yellowish paper, so the coffee stain is almost invisible :) 

To achieve a skin color I mixed yellow and red in different proportions along with adding different amount of water to it. For shadows I was also adding a little bit of violet. This brush appeared to be very useful. I used it for the whole work (except the background and some clothes):

Just as in case of drawing buildings, I used a thin waterproof pen (size XS) for making contours. Metal details were highlighted with a white opaque marker. I was using it for the first time so I had no idea what kind of results should I expect. For me it's like a very thin corrector (0.7 mm):

During such exercises you probably won't have an opportunity to fully express your creativity or move into the world of imagination, but hopefully it will improve your attention to details, proportions and light. Strongly recommended from time to time!

 

 

Sleeping Soul

“It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.”

Stephen King

A temporary (I hope so) lack of regular commissions makes me upset a bit... Just a small digression :) 
"Sleeping Soul" - isn't that an intriguing title? I wouldn't come up with that myself, but that's the title of a poem for which I made the following illustration. So today's post deals with a slightly surreal human.

Tymczasowy (mam nadzieję) brak regularnych zleceń trochę daje mi się we znaki... Taka mała dygresja :) 
"Śpiąca Dusza" - intrygujący tytuł, nieprawdaż? Sama bym go nie wymyśliła, ale tak się składa, że jest to tytuł wiersza, do którego powstała poniższa ilustracja. Dzisiaj więc będzie nieco surrealistyczny temat o człowieku.

Just a pencil sketch and, yes, masking fluid again... but only in some specific places. I masked hair (beard, lashes, eyebrows,  hair on the head) and stars (I splashed masking fluid with broad brush with hard bristles) 

Standardowy szkic ołówkiem i ... a tak, znowu fluid maskujący. Zamaskowałam nim włosy (rzęsy, brwi i oczywiście włosy na głowie) oraz gwiazdy (rozpryskiwałam fluid za pomocą szerokiego pędzla z twardym włosiem 

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... 3 hours later. I'm sorry, but painting the face swamped me completely so I've totally forgotten about documenting what was happening in that time. I put here a lot of layers with different colors until I was satisfied with tones and contrasts. It's really hard to explain what I exactly did. With technique "wet on wet" I painted first layer of a bedsheet. This awful "blot" doesn't bother me now.

... 3 godziny później. Niestety malowanie twarzy zupełnie mnie pochłonęło, przez co zapomniałam o dokumentowaniu poszczególnych etapów. Nakładałam tu wiele warstw farby w różnych kolorach aż uzyskałam zadowalające mnie odcienie i kontrasty. Teraz na prawdę trudno mi wyjaśnić, co konkretnie robiłam. Techniką "mokre na mokrym" namalowałam pierwszą warstwę prześcieradła. Ten wstrętny "grzyb" na razie mnie nie martwi.

 

Now I have to improve hair. With my face almost touching the paper, biting my lip (I always do that when I try to focus) I paint small shadows with  the thinnest brush I could find. Last thing required detailing is the bedsheet. Several layers of paint and we can't see the awful blot anymore!

Teraz pora poprawić włosy. Z nosem przy samej kartce, przygryzając usta (zawsze to robię, kiedy próbuję się skupić) maluję cienie, używając możliwie najcieńszego pędzla. Ostatnim elementem wymagającym dopracowania jest prześcieradło. Kilka warstw farby i nie widać już wstrętnego "grzyba"!