2020

Lauren Hart of Once Human & Kamelot

“I’m living in a vacuum,
I’m falling to the core.”

Kamelot – Mindfall Remedy

It’s probably not a secret that I’m into Kamelot, especially into their latest record The Shadow Theory. I’ve been a massive fan of the album since its release in 2018. After having drawn the album cover as well as a portrait of lead singer Tommy Karevik, I felt like dedicating another drawing to their amazing guest vocalist Lauren Hart (also known from Once Human). I immediately knew which photo I’d base my drawing on as I had already saved an incredible photo by Nat Enemde for that purpose a long time ago. So I was able to start sketching right away. After having done a rough outline, I started with drawing Lauren’s face, continuing with her shirt and then the hair (which probably took me the longest to finish, with all that wind blowing through her hair, giving it a beautifully dynamic but also difficult to recreate look). The background was done quite quickly and as a final touch I added some more shadings, trying to make Lauren’s face look well defined and three-dimensional while keeping everything soft and smooth at the same time.

I’m quite surprised by how fast I was able to pull this off, to be honest – I started drawing on Monday afternoon, didn’t draw on Tuesday, continued on Wednesday afternoon and finished it a few hours later. Not that I’d complain… đŸ˜€

Also, I’m very happy about the fact that Lauren herself saw the drawing (progress) on Instagram and gave me some positive feedback as well as shared my work. I’m always super grateful when things like that happen.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, Rotring Tikky mechanical pencils

Time: approx. 8 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing: Nat Enemde

2019, Allgemein

Lacuna Coil and how I met them…

Drawing Lacuna Coil as well as visiting one of their concerts was a veeery spontaneous idea. I had known they’d come to Hamburg together with Eluveitie for quite a while. But I told myself I wouldn’t go because the date was in the middle of a very busy uni semester for me. And uni is more important, right? Well, long story short: a few weeks before the actual concert I kinda lost my discipline, bought a ticket for the show and a VIP upgrade on top of that.

Because I would’ve hated to show up without having a drawing to sign for the entire band, I had to change that. So two weeks prior to the show I started searching for reference pictures of the band and ended up designing a layout that was very similar to the Powerwolf portrait I had done in 2018. After I was satisfied with the overall layout and the reference pictures, I was able to start drawing. I did most of the drawing work at uni, in my breaks between the lectures. Had I only drawn at home, I wouldn’t have been able to finish within two weeks time. I managed to finish four days before the show, so everything went well.

On the 21st of December, it was finally the time to meet the guys and lady of Lacuna Coil and show them what I had drawn (most of them had already seen the drawing online because I uploaded it to Instagram). I also took the two drawings I had of Cristina with me to get them signed as well. Of course I arrived at the venue way too early – as always. When it was finally time to go inside and meet Lacuna Coil, I got really excited (no matter how often I get to meet a band and get to show them my drawings, the excitement never goes away). We were quite a bunch of people at the meet & greet and our meet & greet location was in a rather small room as the Eluveitie meet & greet required the bigger room. The light was also quite bad which bothered me more than everything else because this way you couldn’t properly see my drawings. But oh well, you can’t have it all, I guess.

When it was my turn to say hi and to get my stuff signed, the band immediately recognised me. We had a nice little chat about how they had been following the drawing process of the band portrait online and about how cool they found my work (of course I’m always happy and flattered when the depicted person compliments my work). I got the drawing signed by all of them, got my two Cristina portraits signed by her separately as well and received a hug from Maki on top (he and I had been chatting about the drawing a bit before the show already). After the signing session we continued with the photo session (once again with bad light). And then the meet & greet was over, as quickly as it had begun. I grabbed my stuff and went to the concert hall where I was lucky enough to still make it to the front row despite all the Eluveitie VIPs that were already occupying the barrier.

The rest of the evening, I got to enjoy a really nice gig and met a bunch of lovely people. Infected Rain did a nice little opening show, Lacuna Coil played a great set (and Maki gave me one of his picks). The headliner – Eluveitie – didn’t disappoint me either as their concert was great (and I received another souvenir, a drumstick from Alan).

2019, Allgemein

The Moonlight Series – Tetiana Shmailiuk

“The lane is overcrowded
But the top is just for one”

Jinjer – On The Top

Since Jinjer released a brilliant album called Macro, I felt like it was finally my turn to dedicate a drawing to their incredibly talented front woman Tetiana Shmailiuk. I saw them live multiple times and they just seem to get better each and every time. The cover artwork of Macro gave me the idea to make my Tetiana’s portrait a part of the moonlight series as well (if you look at the cover you’ll know why).

I had a quite clear image in my head of how I wanted things to look but I simply wasn’t able to find a reference picture that came anywhere near it. Until I found a photo by Warren Chua that immediately caught my attention. It’s aesthetic, powerful, rich in detail without being overloaded and just was the perfect fit.

I quickly started regretting my choice, though. The photo displays Tetiana’s tattoos perfectly so I had a lot of work to do with drawing all of them as accurate as possible – with a ballpoint pen and only a few millimetres of space to work on. In the end, the result looked better than expected and I was able to move on to the dress only to be confronted with the next challenge. How on earth do you draw transparent fabrics with a ballpoint pen? I decided to make things a bit easier and draw the fabrics in a non-transparent way (I wouldn’t have known how to do it any other way). The rest of the portrait was done quite quickly, including Tetiana’s face and hair. The accent colour of this drawing was chosen to fit the colour used in the album cover for Macro, so I drew the moon and some details in turquoise.

I’m really happy with how this artwork turned out and I think it might even be my new favourite from the series.

Paper size: A4

Materials: ballpoint pen, Prismacolor pencils

Time: approx. 10 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Warren Chua

2019

Tommy Karevik of Kamelot

We keep blindly moving
along the same old path”

Kamelot – Burns To Embrace

With Tommy Karevik’s birthday coming closer and the fact that I had a few hours to spare, I decided to give this young man his own portrait. I had been thinking about drawing him for a really long time but never found a reference photo that felt “right” to me – until I stumbled upon a lovely live photo that had been taken somewhere during Kamelot’s Shadow Theory tour. Instead of just drawing Tommy right away, I decided to go a step further and film the entire process once again. So I set up my camera and everything before I started drawing.

(Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to draw in full daylight all the time so you can see the lights change during the process video. Also, I had to remove the camera a few times to re-charge the battery so there are sliiight changes in positioning that you might be able to see when watching the video.)

I’m gonna spare you all the waffle about how I did the drawing this time because you can see so for yourself on YouTube if you’re interested:

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, Rotring Tikky mechanical pencils

Time: approx. 8 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Les Puchala Photography

2019

Inktober 2019

Once again, I decided to give Inktober a try. I didn’t really know how to do it, though, as October was quite packed with moving around and traveling a lot. So I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it the traditional way. Instead, I decided to train my digital drawing skills a bit and draw in Autodesk Sketchbook on my tablet. Which didn’t turn out quite as easy as I had hoped – still very unfamiliar with drawing digitally it took me ages to finish the artworks and therefore I wasn’t able to create a drawing for every prompt. In addition to that, I got sick in the middle of October and had to take a break from drawing.

But I definitely learned and improved and that’s the most important part of Inktober, right?

01.10.2019

“ring”

02.10.2019

“mindless”

03.10.2019

“bait”

04.10.2019

“freeze”

05.10.2019

“build”

06.10.2019

“husky”

07.10.2019

“enchanted”

08.10.2019

“frail”

09.10.2019

“swing”

10.10.2019

“pattern”

11.10.2019

“snow”

12.10.2019

“dragon”

13.10.2019

“ash”

17.10.2019

“ornament”

30.10.2019

“catch”

Materials: Autodesk Sketchbook

Time: approx. 2-3 hours per drawing