Whoever's going to ever have a closer look at this blog, in order to assess it for, let's say, final assessment of this term - don't. look. at. the. date.
I simply do not have enough time (or time-management skills, fairly speaking) to be up to date. But I'll do my best to catch up from now on!
So, after this short and pitiful introduction, let's start. First project of this year (welcomed with big smile! I was probably the only one who missed the uni the whole summer) was called
F
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C
T
I
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!!!
The task was very simple - well, in the terms of speaking. We were supposed to choose a book from the lovely list the tutors prepared for us and make 5 illustrations referring to the content of the book of preference.
Right.
So, I've chosen Dante's Inferno, due to the previous interest in the book, couple of Polish lessons I had back in the high school dedicated to this topic and a nerd love for fantasy creatures.
And the last one became my final idea for the illustrations.
But let's start with inspiration first!
Obviously, since the Dante's Inferno was such a bestseller since, like, hm, forever, the content of the book was already interpreted more than a thousand times and so the illustrators more than thousand times tried to depict Dante's incredible vision. Therefore, I found more than a thousand amazing artworks throughout the centuries to inspire me - let me present you some of them.
Visual chunks I like: I am just superficially in love with the depiction of incubus. It sits audaciously on the woman, making itself look truly sassy. Inspiration I found here: contrast.
This image probably had subconsciously the biggest impact on my work, as I a bit unintentionally made my illustrations horror-like, sometimes to the point I am not proud of - the whining part coming up soon! However, as I saw this image I knew I want my illustration to be boldly screaming the hellish message from the underground as this painting is. I love the way how strong it is at the first sight.
At this point I realised, that I want to take approach on the fantasy creatures. I love this image - if you think about harpies, then you would never imagine it looking like that - however it is truthful to the description - face of a female, body of a bird.
(I just happily love that picture, however I do know, that it does not have nooooothing to do with Dante - yet I found this picture inspiring)
So, as the Dante's Inferno is a quite rich in content, motives, stories, backgrounds and contexts, I decided to choose the CREATURES - harpy, suicide trees, medusa, Cerberus and Lucifer himself.
My aim was to avoid formulaic ideas, already well known concepts, styles and compositions, I wanted my illustrations to be strong, straightforward and grim.
I started with a harpy! As harpies, usually, were depicted with a beautiful female features, like ideal faces (plus some sharp teeth) or sensual body shape (especially in the fantasy illustrations or games - it seems like this industry has always been ruled by men who like good breasts) I wanted to completely discard all of the stereotypes. Thereupon, I looked for a female face to inspire me - and I found gorgeous Sissy Spacek to become the diva of my illustrations.
Dante's Inferno + Sissy Spacek = Carrie - if you ask me. So I re-watched the movie and made some amazing screenshots.
So, somehow, I ended up using Sissy as the greatest inspiration for three out of five illustrations - suicide tree and the Medusa was also based on Sissy's face or body. Can't see the resemblance? I am not sure how does it really works - I just know, that I admired Sissy's beauty, so she was my starting point for those three illustrations. Cerberus was based on some pictures of greyhound, not very inspiring, but I can say, that owning a dog for such a long time makes you able to draw dogs at any form - therefore I used only those pictures to guide myself through the anatomy of a dog. The last one, Lucifer, my least favourite and probably just a disgusting piece of shredded paper - was not based and influenced by anything in particular. It is probably the reason why this one is the weakest illustration out of the set of 5.
And finally, thereby I present...
My final pieces!
It was a new technique for me - collage and drawing all combined together, working with textures and layers. However, I am not glad of last two illustrations - I lost the freshness, I didn't know where to stop, while it seems like I've been in control with the first three. Cerberus probably need some recomposition, it's not the best in the shape as well - but I enjoyed creating that piece, just manually. Harpy and suicide tree were the outcome of the firstly made mistakes - but in general, they were just snapshots, they happened before I even noticed I am done - a pure shot of creativity.
I am aiming to repeat that in the further projects!
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