Black Swan White Lies Illustration

Ou

First picture is the outline.
Second is the rough of digital painting.
Third is the final of the digital painting.
Fourth is the start of a styled/graphic portrait
Fifth is pretty much experimenting with brush and what not.

Firstly, I decided a digital piece would be ideal as I'm trying to pick up on my strengths this term, rather than experimenting with stuff that I'm terrible with in hope of reaching a somewhat satisfactory level.

So it started when I read the little white lies brief. I could select 1 film out of 5 choices, and I chose the black swan.
Watched the film.
Took inspiration and obvious symbols noted.
Blah blah.

So I chose a shot from the film of natalie portman dancing as the white swan turning into the black swan, where by her prince has chosen the wrong princess and shes all '' Oh nooo! ''.
Anyway in the shot she looks like shes running away, with a scared/shocked expression.



The reason I took such a big jump from the smooth digital painting to the gritty one is simply because the first one is not of a high standard, and it didn't really go down well.
After talking for awhile with Illustrator Sleepy Wolf AKA John Chan, http://www.facebook.com/thesleepywolf
He highlighted the reasons that it was bad etc and showed me a few tips on layering and playing with opacity in shadows etc.

Anyway, yeah, my new soluton is the crazy gritty one, having played with effective brushes etc, adding some feathers in to give it that swan feel. I think its a much better solution.

Halloween is nigh!

 The base of it... white face paint and black eyeshadow to contour my cheekbones and my nose.

 And then I used a paintbrush with the black eyeshadow mixed with a bit of water to make it liquidy enough to paint with. When it dried a little, I used a different paintbrush to smooth out the lines. Blusher brush worked nicely too!

 I used the water/eyeshadow mix to paint over my eyebrows, my nose, lips and the eyes.

 The nose is block black. The nose contour is a thin line of shadow/water mix and then blended out with a blusher brush.

I got some facepaint and stuff... and decided to experiment...

WOOO.

(I know I look like an absolute twonk but I enjoyed it and it might give you an idea! For halloween am actually going as a vampire so... Ill post them too.)

Finals

Bee Campaign - Uni

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of my final 3 for my Campaign Project!

You have no idea how many friggin layers are in this.
I've drawn 6 different bees altogether, mainly Bumble Bee and Honey Bee in different positions.
Criticism please. I'd like to fix it before I have my deadline!

The whole concept of this idea is to raise awareness of the CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) which is the name given to the disappearance of the western honey bee.

Einstein predicted that 4 years after the bee dies out, humans would follow. Pretty scary shit.

Thanks for c&c in advance!

Book Review Uno: Game of Thrones by George R R Martin.

This has been an insanely good read. Although written in a limited 3rd person narrative through different point of views of individual characters.
I'm not gonna spoil the plots or such so don't worry.
The story all takes place on a fictional land created by George R.R Martin, insanely intricate detailed maps are inside the book, as are the Houses of the Lords. Just like in medieval times, when you'd have paintings of bloodlines, the book has it all in the back, from the bloodline to the house's sigil. I.e Stark is a wolf, Lannister is a lion, Greyjoy is a Kraken.

I'll be perfectly honest with you, I found the story slow starting, and builds up as you gather more and more information about each house and the battle for the throne.
I highly recommend this for people who read alot, people with big imaginations. If you don't like fiction, such as Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, don't read this. You'd be wasting your time.

Favourite character in this is probably Tyrion Lannister. A dwarf, but he takes a special liking to 'broken' people. People with faults and flaws, as he can relate to them.
Lord Eddard Stark too, he's a very honorable man.

I loved the twist in the plots and the shocks you get throughout the book, its not typical save every character kinda book, and even though you find yourself sometimes thinking why on earth the author killed off a character, he manages to roll the story through and make it even better.

Probably a 4 out of 5 stars. Simply because it takes awhile to get into the story.

Portraits dos.

First is the original scanning.
Second is a few layers of the same scanning but with threshold. Also messing with the opacity.

Progression.