There are a few WIPs that I'd like to share with you guys, hoping that you'll put some friendly pressure on me and I'll finally finish them
The first one I did as a homework for an online art history class I took in February, I think. The goal was to create an artwork that utilized some of the themes in Velazquez' Las Meninas - mirror and reflection, seeing and being seen and so on. So I chose the first two together with somewhat of a try to place my character in the same era. I'm sure there are problems with her clothing history-wise but finding costumes from a certain century and certain country online proved to be quite difficult, as you get all kinds of stuff, mostly from other periods and places. Anyway, I ended up with this:
Don't ask me why it's square, I don't know. I intend to crop it so the lady's face ends up close to the top right corner and emphasize it as a focal point.
The next painting has a pretty big idea behind itself. You see, I'm from Bulgaria and I'm really interested in local folklore, especially as it seems to be kind of forgotten around here. I'm also interested in fantasy and back when the idea for this painting occurred to me I had been watching Avatar - the Last Airbender, so I got hooked up to bending in general. Additionally, I have that dream to one day be able to paint for Applibot. The combination of these three to me looks like this: fire, air, water and earth benders, women, dressed in Bulgarian national costumes (I don't intend to be precise here as we have LOTS of different national costumes in the different areas of the country, so it will be a mix of elements that I like), depicted in their calm and angry state. That would be a total of 8 paintings and I'm aiming for realism here.
The picture below has a working title Firewood Mischief. A small flame is going to come from the hand that's close to her face, and I intend to make her face clearly mischievous, as to imply
"see that flame? see the firewood I'm sittin' on? you now what may happen next, don't ya?". I got stuck with it because I simply cant figure out how to paint her apron realistically - I have no idea how it will fold given her pose. What adds to this problem is that in national costumes the thickness and stiffness of fabric varies, at least from what I've seen so far. And I haven't figured out the fabric of the apron yet.
And the last project, the one that's actually a commission and I'm currently working on, involves the complete development of a character. Her name's Molly and she'll be the mascot of an online store. My client's already taken a look at the sketches, approved them (except for some of the facial expressions, which I'll be correcting as I go), so I'll be moving on to the painting stage. I aim for a sweet, innocent, semi-realistic style here, so she'll end up looking a bit like Barbie, but as long as my client likes her, I'm happy
Oh and her head is a bit bigger than what's considered proportionate but I did that intentionally, in order to emphasize on the sweetness of her face. That's the main deal here - sweetness and kindness.
I would love some input on those, especially the first two, as they're purely personal projects that I intend to add to my portfolio eventually, so they need to be absolutely awesome
Thank you for your time!