sorry about the lack of posts but I was at NYCC and then last week was me dealing with the fall out of taking off to the comic con at short notice, I did post some figure studies I did on FB and my twitter tho. Just in case you missed em I'll throw em up here as well. I'll start with them and lead into the finished piece I did for this week.
this guy was sitting around the airport in Dublin
Two more guys in Dub airport
This guy was sitting in a pub in NY, drew him while I was waiting for some mates
This guy was in Central Park
My fav of the trip, this guy was on the plane home
Some doodles in the pad, mucking about with some pens.
Aaaaaaand the piece this week. Well a bunch of my friends got married this week, that's right a bunch!!!
One of those couples are my mates Ted and Kells. I went through secondary school with Ted, we quickly became friends over comics and all things film and nerdy. As we left school and did the usual drifting apart nonesense, he meets the great Kells, they get married and live happily ever after!
Sooooooo a nerdy friend gets married, what do I do? Seize the opportunity to draw these two something nice.
I remember him being a big Joe Mad fan ( who wasn't right? ) and while being on the stag I remember Ted saying he actually knew Kells when he was a kid. So it kind of made sense to use Joe Mad's characters Red Monika and Garrison from Battle Chasers, since these two kind of had a Mulder Scully will they wont the thing later on in their life and knew each other as kids.
The problem here, well Red Monika dresses a tad... well...slutty. Pretty sure herself and Ivy from Soul Caliber buy their outfits in the same shop. And Kells is a classy girl and Ted well Ted isn't a classy girl. So I didn't want to have that overly busty almost nude Red Monika in their wedding present, it works perfectly in the comics but not so much as a wedding present.
Then I started thinking about the pose, well I've wanted to do some kind of homage to Rodin's "The Kiss" for a while now. It's prob one of my all time fav's of any art ever.
I remember studying this in school, reading about how uncomfortable the pose is for these two and that the kiss itself could only last for a second before the pose would become so uncomfortable. Nonetheless the couple seem to twist into "unison" so we literally see the couple becoming one. Every beat of intimacy hit in this great sculpture and yeah they're nude but it's pretty classy, bet these two never twerked a day in their lives and manage to kiss and keep their tongues in their mouths.
So tried to capture the essence of Rodin's 'Kiss' and Joe Mad's generation inspiring Battle Chasers, this is what I got.
Left out the characters weapons for the most part as Red Monika is a kick ass mercenary who usually is up to the gills in knives etc, but left in Garrison's sword, put it behind them, almost a fading silhouette so it's almost suggesting that it's the end of one part of their life, but the blossom on top of the tree behind them is blooming, so it's suggesting new beginnings.
Ted and Kells, Congrats you two. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.
