My Neighbor Boletus

A little (my children right now claim a lot of my free time) homage to the upcoming autumn and one of my favorite movies from one of my favorite film-makers, the -sadly- retired Hayao Myiazaki.

 

Amphetamine Owl

This was a short task, but it put me far long out of my comfort zone, so it was very much welcome. A colleague/friend of mine wanted to give a decorated mug as a present for hers MC-driving instructor. 

The assignment was to depict this bulky guy yelling at her during lessons. I was provided with a picture of him, the info that he used to call her "amphetamine owl" and some details about motorcycle and his typical outfit.

The drawing was expected to be ironic and not too detailed, since it had to be put on a mug.

Here a pic of the finished work. It is really impressive how nowadays the finish and the quality of colours of ceramic items can be so good.

Madonna Lois Griffin

Again, I've got a new idea for the contest "From Comical to Classical" in the DeviantArt group The Digital Painter where I already participate with the Barbabella da Vinci showed in the previous post. 

This time is the turn of a much respectless subject, and the Madonna Colonna:

 

from Raphael Sanzio is the innocent victim of my latest work, since She and her Son have been personified by a couple of members of the Griffins family (the one of the controversial Family Guy series).

Given the subject, I had to paint something controversial as well, so I tried to depict their daily family drama in a way that Raphael and other more pious than the Griffin family would almost find blasphemous and surely irreverent.

Just take my painting with some irony rather than the original meaning of the true Raphael masterpiece, and don't forget what the cartoon is about.

Technically, this work has been done in a lack of time, since the contest deadline is very close, so I'm not really satisfied with its quality.

Barbabelle da Vinci

A couple of weeks ago I read that the DeviantArt group The Digital Painter announced a contest among digital painters. The subject is "From Comical to Classical", and, in the middle of two paintings which aren't satisfying me, I decided to take a break and participate in the contest, just for fun since I don't really hope to win something. 

The matter is, in short, to take one or more characters from a published comic, anime, or toon, and paint it in the style of a classical painting.

My son and his books inspired me to use Barbabelle from the Barbapapa family and turn her into the Lady with an Ermine from Leonardo da Vinci:

It had a lot of fun painting Barbabelle, and it went quite fast if compared with my usual standard. Even if I will be far away from getting some rewards, it was a good idea for finding something to decorate my child's room. A challenge was also to paint without color pickup, and also to get a kind of old patina to the painting itself.

Instead of the ermine I put a dog, which should resemble the Lolita dog of Barbapapa. I'm also aware that the real Barbabelle wears yellow flowers, but in this case I used red ones, since they better match the red dress, and, you know, she's a fashionist indeed...

I feel a little annoyed about the necklace not casting a shadow on Barbabelle's skin, but in the original da Vinci I cannot see that shadow as well, and I had to keep the same style as the original, so here is it:

Plus a couple of closeups:

And now I'm going to submit Barbabelle to the contest. Wish me good luck!

The Sorceress of the Hound

Among vacations, a no-sleeping child and many things to do, I didn't update here for a while. Anyway, in April I got a commission from a colleague and friend of mine, who owns a caravan and some competition dogs together with another girl. They asked me to draw a decal, which should be 100 x 30 cm, and be put on their caravan.

There must be written "LC witch on the way", in Swedish since this is their nickname in the world of dogs competitions. It should also represent a self-confident witch mastering two dogs of defined breed (afghan and whippet), which must be also easily recognisable from the picture. The dogs would like to run after a hare, but the sorceress would not let them go as they want.

She provided me with own photo references of the dogs, while the witch is not intended to look like the girls.

My idea was to use a cartoon style, since it's ironic and requires strong colours and shapes, which could be seen on the way by other cars. This was a very interesting and funny challenge for me, since I'm not really a cartoonist.

The first idea was to use a Disney-like approach, so this was the first sketch of the witch, plus the whippet:

I wasn't really satisfied with the characters, since they weren't coherent with each other, anatomy was annoyingly bad and the whole concept non that funny.

After some weeks I got a completely different approach, so this is the final result:

The sorceress haircut recalls the afghan ears and tail, as well hers slim arms should resemble the thin complexion of the whippet hound. She doesn't need to make such an effort to held the running dogs, since a couple of magic hands is working for her. On the other way, the hare is very aware of the situation and takes its time to drink a cocktail. The background contains very few and simple elements inspired by the swedish landscape (mushrooms, blueberries and fir forest), and is dark to highlight the magic thunderbolt and the dogs.
My friend said she was satisfied with the work and concept (for them, dogs anatomy was an important issue), hope they like it... for me, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Below, some details:

 The Witch

The Afghan

Whippet

Hare