![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
... in whcih David shares.
So this is what I finished today:
First, a couple of shifts ago, I noticed an odd patten that had been left on one of the work benches after a wet cloth had been used to quickly wipe something away. These are the streaks it left:
If you tilt your head to the right completely, it will be the right way. Sorry, I can't seem to be able to rotate it without damaging it.
There were a couple other less-clear photos, too. They aren't awesome photos, but they were enough. I took them so I wouldn't forget the original pattern because they intrigued me so. I saw things in the pattern. Several combinations of things, actually. Lynn thought me crazy, and he's probably right.
So, when I got home, I drew a very crappy interpretation of the strongest, and first, pattern I'd recognised:
which I realised was crappy, so I redid it and came up with this:
I wasn't completely happy with this, mainly because it's on lined paper (unfortunately all I had available at the time), but also because it's fuzzy in pencil. That's where I stopped.
Today I picked it up again. I wanted it cleaner, so I redid it with a felt tip pen (I love them so!) and it turned out really nice. Except when I scanned it, it became this:
which became this after a little while in photoshop:
After that, there was only the not-so-simple task of colouring left. However, I actually like the way it turned out. Woot!
So, an explanation. Clearly, she is not human; that much is obvious. Also, she looks a little Irish, which is funny seeing as she was originally quite Texan. But, to the clothes!
The hat has a hole in the top through which part of the hair is to be pulled. it's quite common among her people to wear the hair either straight down over the edge of the hat to rejoin the rest of their hair, or two wrap the hair between the brim and the hat's wall, much like a moat. The purple piece of fabric is completely separate to the green dress, and is soemthing like their version of a tie, except it isn't quite as gendered. The dress is supposed to be quite figure-hugging, so I don't totally get how it's come up quite so high as to be practically around her waist, however there it is. The sleeves are supposed to be in three parts: one is the shoulder, with the piping and the diamond design, or whatever a particular dress may have; the second part is an outer sleeve, draped from the shoulder to halfway down the forearm at an angle, finished with a tassle-like fringe; third is the sleeve proper which comes down to the wrist and is usually worn open. Beneath the dress is a silver support system; much like those bell-type dresses under which you could hide several small children if you wished, it keeps the dress in a particular shape. The support is not completely circular, nor does it come to a unifrom end; contemporary fashions are rarely understood by either previous generations or the next. Underneath the support is a heavy fabric for warmth (it's pretty much just a thich woolen rug attached to the support) which is not entirely covered by the dress - the dress only comes to halfway between the support and the end of the heavier fabric. Again I say, contemporary fashion.
This isn't really how I first saw her, though. The hat is wrong, the tassles are wrong, and the wings had to be changed. Her sleeve isn't nearly as complicated as the original pattern suggested. And she no longer looks like she's been thrown or pushed by some force, which is what the original definitely suggested. Furthermore, she's lost a lot of the fear from her eyes along the way; one of the reasons I originally attempted it was that I loved the expression I could see on her face. But most of all, she's lost her Royalty. I have a feeling she may have been inspired by Princess Peach...
However, I am pleased with the final result. Especially with my shading, which has generally been quite crap in the past. highfive?
So this is what I finished today:
First, a couple of shifts ago, I noticed an odd patten that had been left on one of the work benches after a wet cloth had been used to quickly wipe something away. These are the streaks it left:
If you tilt your head to the right completely, it will be the right way. Sorry, I can't seem to be able to rotate it without damaging it.
There were a couple other less-clear photos, too. They aren't awesome photos, but they were enough. I took them so I wouldn't forget the original pattern because they intrigued me so. I saw things in the pattern. Several combinations of things, actually. Lynn thought me crazy, and he's probably right.
So, when I got home, I drew a very crappy interpretation of the strongest, and first, pattern I'd recognised:
which I realised was crappy, so I redid it and came up with this:
I wasn't completely happy with this, mainly because it's on lined paper (unfortunately all I had available at the time), but also because it's fuzzy in pencil. That's where I stopped.
Today I picked it up again. I wanted it cleaner, so I redid it with a felt tip pen (I love them so!) and it turned out really nice. Except when I scanned it, it became this:
which became this after a little while in photoshop:
After that, there was only the not-so-simple task of colouring left. However, I actually like the way it turned out. Woot!
So, an explanation. Clearly, she is not human; that much is obvious. Also, she looks a little Irish, which is funny seeing as she was originally quite Texan. But, to the clothes!
The hat has a hole in the top through which part of the hair is to be pulled. it's quite common among her people to wear the hair either straight down over the edge of the hat to rejoin the rest of their hair, or two wrap the hair between the brim and the hat's wall, much like a moat. The purple piece of fabric is completely separate to the green dress, and is soemthing like their version of a tie, except it isn't quite as gendered. The dress is supposed to be quite figure-hugging, so I don't totally get how it's come up quite so high as to be practically around her waist, however there it is. The sleeves are supposed to be in three parts: one is the shoulder, with the piping and the diamond design, or whatever a particular dress may have; the second part is an outer sleeve, draped from the shoulder to halfway down the forearm at an angle, finished with a tassle-like fringe; third is the sleeve proper which comes down to the wrist and is usually worn open. Beneath the dress is a silver support system; much like those bell-type dresses under which you could hide several small children if you wished, it keeps the dress in a particular shape. The support is not completely circular, nor does it come to a unifrom end; contemporary fashions are rarely understood by either previous generations or the next. Underneath the support is a heavy fabric for warmth (it's pretty much just a thich woolen rug attached to the support) which is not entirely covered by the dress - the dress only comes to halfway between the support and the end of the heavier fabric. Again I say, contemporary fashion.
This isn't really how I first saw her, though. The hat is wrong, the tassles are wrong, and the wings had to be changed. Her sleeve isn't nearly as complicated as the original pattern suggested. And she no longer looks like she's been thrown or pushed by some force, which is what the original definitely suggested. Furthermore, she's lost a lot of the fear from her eyes along the way; one of the reasons I originally attempted it was that I loved the expression I could see on her face. But most of all, she's lost her Royalty. I have a feeling she may have been inspired by Princess Peach...
However, I am pleased with the final result. Especially with my shading, which has generally been quite crap in the past. highfive?
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
The dress was originally a soft pink, and her hair was blonde, but in playing around with the shading, I realised that her hair would look awesome if I could get it to look like fire. And you know what they say about the carpet matching the drapes, so I had to follow suit on the wings. I only wish I could have gotten the feathers to be more... feathery? They keep looking to me like leaves.
As for inspiration, this isn't the first time I've been inspired by that sort of thing. Muppo, the current icon, was a similarly dried moisture pattern on the concrete outside one of my classes in first year (he looks better in pencil). Our beloved Crunchy was a balled-up Crunchy Nut muesli bar wrapper. Then there're the Tall Man (jaguar-headed cloaked figure with a huge battered shield) and the Platypus Warrior (a small billed creature with pants and a nature-inspired rocket launcher-style weapon - I think it was for firing coconuts, and was made of bamboo) who were in patterns on a bus window on the way to school one morning, where the condensation hadn't. Not to mention a whole stack of others.
It's tough being a creative genius. :P
From:
no subject
btw, I left you a myspace comment last night, and then realised that you hadn't been on yourmyspace for like a month. So you should go hop on that, because the comment I left you could be VITAL TO OUR EXISTANCE.