CARINA & JACK

Commission Piece

I was asked by Carina to turn her and her boyfriend, Jack, into my Steampunk/ Gothic characters.

Happy to help, I was excited about the project and Carina and I set a date to discuss all things costumes, poses and design elements.

Carina had a good idea of what she wanted to wear, so after about an hour of browsing through pictures of historical garments we decided on her look.

Sparing no detail, we decided Jack should be in a double breasted waistcoat with a pocket watch, as you can see from the finished piece.

To top it all off, Carina wanted her rather large and lazy cat featured in the artwork. I think he fits in perfectly looking smug and content on his plush cushion.

Obviously the characters are not an exact replica of the people (realism isn’t my style of art) so it is a representation of them however all the elements involved capture the subject’s personalities perfectly!

All up, the artwork took me around 32 hours to complete.

Scroll down to see the sketches and artwork in progress.

Nicola xx

THE INITIAL SKETCH

HARD AT WORK!

STEPS INVOLVED IN THE MAKING-OF

Choose costumes

We spared no detail when it came to the costumes. From double breasted over single breasted waistcoat, to the skirt length, to dots on the stockings instead of netting. The sky is the limit!

Decide on the poses

To make the character’s suit Carina and Jack’s personalities, we had Carina sipping tea and Jack; who is into chemistry and maths, reading a book on Advanced Chemistry.

Final adjustments

Once the final sketch was ready, Carina had the opportunity to ask for any last minute changed before colouring began. Once colouring starts, no further changes can be made because you can’t erase charcoal!

Colouring

Then it was time to colour in my sketch. This is where the pictures really come alive with the shading and depth added. Colouring is the part that takes by far the longest in the process.