After weeks of impatiently waiting for the new Arch Enemy album to be released and the signing session to come, it was finally time. I arrived at the record shop quite early and had about two hours left before the signing session was about to start. Of course, I wasn’t the only early bird and so I had some people to talk to while waiting. The time passed by quickly and Arch Enemy entered the room and took their places at the signing table. I was among the first to get to the band and I started to get out my drawings. Michael was the first one to sign so I handed him over my band portrait. “Really? You want me to sign THAT? Where should I sign? I don’t want to ruin it. Hey, guys, look at this.” … and so on. Some of them even knew the portrait because they had seen it on Instagram before and they seemed to be really interested in it. Daniel for example closely examined his tattoos on the drawing, telling me that I did a good job, and then asked me how much time it took me to draw the picture. When I reached Alissa, I got out my other drawings as well and asked her to sign them. She immediately recognized the drawings as she too had seen them online before. She thanked me for taking the time to draw all those portraits and told me she really likes them. The ballpoint pen portrait was the last drawing to get signed but I decided that I didn’t want it to get signed. Instead, I gave it to her and told her that she can keep it if she wants to. She thanked me once again and then gave me her pen, saying “Actually, I think, YOU should be the one signing this”. So I ended up signing a portrait for Alissa White-Gluz (felt pretty weird, I usually don’t get asked for signatures). Of course, I didn’t have a lot of time with the band as there were dozens of other people who wanted their stuff to get signed, too. Nevertheless, it was really cool and I just love holding a signed drawing in my hands. Back home I framed the drawings and hung them up in my little “gallery” where I can see them every day.
Author: Miss Escapist
Arch Enemy
“Feel the strength rise from within. If you really want it the world is yours.”
Arch Enemy – The World Is Yours
A few weeks before the release of “Will To Power” Arch Enemy announced a signing session in my home town. I was super excited about this because I saw a chance to show Alissa the drawings that I had made of her in person. And to get them signed, of course. However, I felt like it would’ve been a bit unfair to show up with a bunch of Alissa drawings without having a single drawing dedicated to the entire band. I mean, I love Alissa but I also love Arch Enemy as a band and I’m really into their music. So they deserved a band portrait anyways. I picked a picture from a promo shoot for their upcoming album as a reference and started drawing. First, I drew Michael, followed my Jeff. While Michael was done quite quickly, drawing Jeff consumed a bit more time (I’m not good when it comes to drawing light hair). I continued working on Sharlee and Daniel (whose tattoos took me ages and required a lot of patience) before I finally started drawing the lady in the centre. Luckily, I already had a lot of experience with drawing Alissa and so I didn’t struggle with depicting her. As a final touch, I decided to draw the background as well. After that, I was done with the portrait and all ready to get it signed by Arch Enemy.
Paper size: A3
Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: approx. 15 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing has been taken by: Katja Kuhl
An Alissa Ballpoint Pen Experiment
“So many times its a matter of degrees from being up on your luck to down on your knees.”
Arch Enemy – War Eternal
For Alissa’s birthday, I spontaneously decided to draw another portrait of her. If there hadn’t been one major obstacle: I didn’t have any pencils with me! (I was working abroad at that time and hadn’t packed any pencils – I mean, I was there for work) Buying a new set of pencils just for one drawing seemed a bit over the top for me, so I took a different route. I had a cheap ballpoint pen with me and I started thinking “Maybe you can pull it off with this”. And so I challenged myself to try drawing an entire portrait using nothing but this one ballpoint pen. In the beginning it felt very strange but I quickly got used to my new drawing tool. Drawing the outlines and the darker areas wasn’t too difficult but getting lighter shadows was another thing. The pen reacted extremely sensitive to even the slightest adjustment of pressure, so I had to be extremely careful. But there was also a great advantage to drawing with a ballpoint pen: the portrait was done in absolutely no time. And it actually looks pretty cool, I like the edginess that this drawing style creates. I think it goes really well with Alissa’s outfit and style in this one.
Paper size: A4
Materials: ballpoint pen
Time: approx. 3 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Tim Tronckoe
Alissa White-Gluz – But This Time In Colour
“No progress comes from pleasure. We smile in ignorance and learn in pain”
Arch Enemy – Avalanche
Who would be qualified better for another coloured portrait than the one and only Alissa White-Gluz? And as I had a pencil in just the right shade of blue, it wasn’t that much of a question anymore. I had a picture of her in mind that I had wanted to draw for quite a long time, so I jumped right into it. First, I did a rough sketch with a blacklead pencil and then I started to fill everything with colours. Shading the skin went a bit better this time and when I was done with it I moved on to the part I had been looking forward to the most: her hair, of course. I wanted it to be the catchy highlight of the portrait and i put a lot of effort into getting the colours and the texture right. The last thing to draw was her shirt, which didn’t consume a lot of time as it just consists of black and white. I ended up very happy with the result and when I uploaded it to Instagram I even received a comment by Alissa herself, telling me that the drawing looks awesome and that she thinks I’m really talented. Yay. đŸ™‚
Paper size: A4
Materials: Faber Castell coloured pencils
Time: approx. 8 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Jeremy Saffer
Maisie Williams
“I’m going to kill the queen.”
Arya Stark (Game of Thrones)
What’s better than one Game of Thrones inspired artwork? Two Game of Thrones inspired artworks! Once again, I had difficulties deciding, so I ended up picking a character randomly – Arya Stark. I wasn’t really able to find a reference picture of Arya that convinced me, though, so I searched for pictures of Maisie Williams instead. Close enough, I thought. For this portrait I wanted to try something new and draw an entirely coloured portrait. Luckily, I had the right set of colours at hand, so I started drawing immediately. During the drawing process I had some difficulties with shading – I usually draw with very soft pencils and the coloured pencils that I used for this one were a lot harder. I really struggled with getting depth into her face and make the entire thing look three-dimensional. Nevertheless, the result looks kinda like Maisie, so I’ll stop complaining. Apart from the shading I was rather satisfied with how the portrait turned out and decided to do another coloured portrait soon.
Paper size: A4
Materials: Faber Castell coloured pencils
Time: approx. 8 hours
Winter Is Coming
“Winter is coming.”
Everyone in Game of Thrones
Always
With the seventh season of Game of Thrones coming up it just seemed natural to dedicate an artwork to what’s probably my favourite series. As I couldn’t decide for a character and didn’t have that much time anyways, I went with the logo of house Stark instead. At first, I didn’t intend to draw anything more than the wolf. But once I was done with that, the picture seemed quite boring to me and so I added some black background, the “Winter Is Coming” plus a bit of ice and snowflakes. Much better now.
Paper size: A4
Materials: acrylic colours, PITT Artist Pens
Time: approx. 1 hour
How I Got My Epica Artworks Signed
31. of Januar, 2017. The day I had been waiting for for weeks – I’d finally be able to meet Epica and show them my drawings! I was very excited that day when it was finally time to enter the location and meet Epica – a band that had inspired me for such a long time and whose music I listen to almost daily. It was a very relaxed Meet & Greet as we were only 5 “VIPs”. Fist, Mark and Arien entered the room and had a little chat with us. The crew built up a photo wall and the table for signing while I was talking with Mark. Then the rest of the band arrived and the signing session began. I got out my artworks and showed it to the guys and lady, asking them to sign them. Simone was the first to see the artworks and told me that she was really impressed, especially by the portrait drawing of her. At first, she didn’t even want to sign it because she was afraid of “ruining” it. The guys showed a similar reaction to the artworks. Coen was especially interested in the music sheets that I drew for Simone’s portrait and examined everything very thoroughly. They all told me how much they liked the artworks and asked me a lot of questions about them – how long did it take me to finish them, what materials did I use, and so on… After the signing session we went on to taking the photos with the band – which didn’t take too much time as we weren’t many people. Then we had a last chance to take photos with singles band members and chat with them before we had to say goodbye. The concert that followed the Meet & Greet was amazing and Epica were in a really good shape. All in all: a very successful evening that I’ll definitely remember for a long time.
It’s Epica – Again
“We challenge illusions
Created by us all”
Epica – The Holographic Principle
A few days after finishing Simone Simons portrait I bought myself a VIP ticket for one of Epica’s shows that I already had a ticket for. There was only one month left until the show and the Meet & Greet that I had access to through the VIP ticket. I knew that I’d definitely take the portrait of Simone with me to show it to her and to get it signed. As there was still time, why not do another fanart, that wasn’t focussed on a single band member but rather on their latest album “The Holographic Principle”. As I liked the album cover a lot and it wasn’t too complicated, I decided to paint it on my last canvas. After making the usual rough sketch I started with a purple base layer and then added some highlights and shadows. After that I worked out the face. This time painting the black areas black was the last thing I did (Yes, I’ve learned a thing or two from my Delain painting.). For adding all the colourful geometric details I used a very fine brush and carefully painted them on top. Last step: a lot of stars and a few silver highlights.
I managed to finish the painting two weeks before the concert and was all ready to go and get it signed.
Paper size: 30 x 45 canvas
Materials: acrylic colours
Time: approx. 7 hours
Reference picture used for the painting: cover of the album “The Holographic Principle”
The Project That Took Me Almost Entire 2016 To Finish It…
“All that we desire
Is to find our source again
The meaning of life”
Epica – The Quantum Enigma
I couldn’t have chosen a more complicated reference photo for this drawing. I definitely couldn’t have. But I’ve fallen in love with the photo when I saw it for the first time and haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since. It’s truly a piece of art. So one sunny afternoon in spring I got out my pencils and an A3 sheet of paper and started doing a rough sketch of Simone. The first thing I drew was the corset which already took me a lot of patience, as I had to draw white details on a black background. So I left out everything that had to stay white and shaded the rest. After that I went on with detailing and shading the parts that I had left white before. The legs and the shoe were quite simple to draw and quickly done. I continued with the arms, the face and then the hair. “Great!”, I thought. “Only the background left.”. Only…the background turned out be an absolute suicide mission that drove me totally crazy. I tried to draw every single sheet a true to the original as possible, from positioning to shading to the notes written on them. In fact, I tried to copy every single note 1:1. It took me ages and I almost lost my sanity over it. When I finally finished the drawing, it was already December. I had started in spring. Wow. That one required a lot of patience…
But it was absolutely worth it, I love the drawing so much and I’m really proud of it.
Paper size: A3
Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: Forever… (I really can’t tell how many hours I spent on it.)
Reference photo for the drawing has been taken by: Tim Tronckoe
Dianne Van Giersbergen
“All hear the oceans howling
Voices of the Fallen”
Xandria – Voyage Of The Fallen
When I went to see Powerwolf live last year, Xandria were the opening act. Until that day I had known Xandria but never payed to much attention to them. For me they had always been “just another symphonic metal band” that didn’t stand out in any way. Seeing them live definitely changed my opinion because they were absolutely amazing. Dianne’s stage presence and her incredible voice have proven me wrong. I listened to Xandria’s discography after that concert and I soon came to realise the reason why I had never particularly liked Xandria before: I only liked those songs sung by Dianne. But I liked that ones a looot. So I decided to give Dianne her own portrait. I used a different paper than usual for drawing, a rather rough one with a lot of texture. And if I’ve learned one thing from it it’s that I’ll never do it again. No matter how hard I tried, the shadings always looked a bit weird and I just wasn’t able to make the skin look as smooth as I wanted it to. Also, the perspective is kinda messed up. The hair, on the other hand, turned out quite good and I guess in the end the portrait doesn’t look too bad. At least you can see the parallels to Dianne.
Paper size: A4
Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: approx. 5 hours
Miss Escapist Art 