It's Monday, so it's time for your regularly scheduled State of the Artist update!
First, many thanks to everyone who voted and replied to the Steampunk Tarot Project post! It provided some useful information, the most interesting of which was the overwhelming majority voted for the "do your own thing" model when it came to the divination cards. This definitely requires more research, sketching, timeline breakdown, and project pricing before I can put together a Kickstarter pitch, so I thank you all very much!
Weekly Words
Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgement of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.
- Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 - 1519
It is a hard-learned lesson that creative endeavors benefit more, and tend to improve, from honest, constructive criticism than adulation. No one ever learns anything from being told everything is perfect; that only results in the same errors repeated time and time again.
This holds true for any creative endeavor, for when we cease to believe we *can* improve, we stagnate.
Current Project
I had to take a small break from current commissions this weekend to work on sketching something personal before I lost the idea completely, or convinced myself not to tackle it.
What is this idea? In order to produce more of Madame Scarlett's crew of the Lofty Pursuits, I needed to create interior spaces of her airship brothel. That said, I am not an architectural illustrator, but I took a whack at drawing up an escort's cabin. I have to say that sketching out the floor plan first helps a great deal! It gives me a much better sense of where things are supposed to be in the space.
*as always, clicking on the thumbnail opens the larger image*
To start with, I created the floor plan of Madame Scarlett's captain's/madam's cabin. I do realize, that were this on a Real Live ship, it would most likely take up the majority of the deck, but, hey, she's the captain!
Then, I moved to the floor plan of a "typical" escort's cabin on her ship. They are much larger than any cabin on a real vessel of comparable barque size would be, but this is a "reclaimed" warship, and she's been refitted to serve her new requirements, so bigger cabins it is! (Think of the Lofty Pursuits like the Tardis... she's bigger on the inside. :)
This second floor plan has been of immense help when creating the actual room for the escort (which will be the background image for the next piece featuring a new crew member of the Lofty Pursuits.) I've never drawn an interior with so much detail, and it was quite the challenge, fun and frustrating at the same time. The thought of putting color and pattern detail in the final inks of this piece make me extremely nervous! (Especially seeing as it should hopefully match the stylistic feel of the background to "Red Light Flights," in which I unintentionally ended up with a more Maxfield Parrish atmosphere.)
It definitely needs tweaks and fixes, but all in all, I think it's a pretty good start.
Near Future
Near Future sees me, hopefully, completing at least 2 of these backlogged commissions by the end of the month, and I am eternally grateful for how patient my clients are!
That's all for this week's update, thank you for joining me, and hope to see you here again next week!
Kit
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