Category: 2019

2019, Allgemein

Lacuna Coil and how I met them…

Miss Escapist

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

Miss Escapist

“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

Miss Escapist

“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

Miss Escapist

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

2019

The Moonlight Series – Cristina Scabbia

Miss Escapist

“Three nights of Hell
Immortality spell
Light up the skies
Make it through the darkness”

Lacuna Coil – Blood, Tears, Dust

After the massive (and quite unexpected) success of my moonlight-Alissa-ballpoint drawing I felt encouraged enough to give it a second try and draw another metal lady in a similar style. I started a voting on Instagram, asking my followers whether I should draw Charlotte Wessels of Delain or Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil. As the majority voted for Cristina…I drew Cristina (sorry Charlotte, I’ll draw you another time, I promise).

Searching for a reference picture turned out more difficult than I had expected – not because of a lack of suitable references but because there were too many. Eventually, I managed to decide and ended up choosing one of the “simpler” photos. The general layout of the drawing would be identical with the layout that I came up with for Alissa’s portrait so I basically just had to “copy” everything. Apart from the fact that I gave the moon another colour and of course drew Cristina instead of Alissa. I decided to make the moon red this time because the colour seemed most appropriate to me, matching Cristina’s red scar (and also because Lacuna Coil like to use red in their imagery in general). Drawing Cristina herself wasn’t that much of an effort as her outfit is relatively simple and didn’t require too much attention to tiny details.

Paper size: A4

Materials: ballpoint pen, Prismacolor pencils

Time: approx. 5 hours

2019, Portraits

Redrawing Tarja

Miss Escapist

“Promises mean everything
Life won’t look back for you”

Tarja – Dead Promises

I’ve been actively drawing for about five years now. This felt like a good time to make a cut, take a step back and look at what I’ve achieved in those five years. I knew that I’ve made quite some progress when it comes to my drawing skills – I’m having way less trouble with drawing nasty details, especially hair, and  overall the results just look better than they did when I started. But I was curious on what would happen if I drew one of my old portraits with the skills that I have nowadays. So I decided to do a redraw.

Back in 2014, Tuomas and Tarja of Nightwish were the first portraits I ever drew. As I had just done a new Tuomas portrait, it was clearly Tarja’s turn now. Also, August seemed like a fiiting time to pull off this redraw-project: Tarja’s birthday is in the middle of August and also she’s close to releasing a new album (tomorrow, as a matter of fact).

No need to search for a refrence picture this time, as I’d be using exactly the same refrence as five years ago. So I jumped right into it and started by doing a rough outline sketch. After that, I began working on the face which I was able to finish quite quickly. This time, the kinda “weird” angle of her face didn’t cause me as much trouble as it did the first time. Drawing the hair, though, was probably the biggest revelation for me – until that point I hadn’t realised HOW MUCH I had actually improved. Not only did the result look so much better and way more realistic, it also took me a rather small amount of time. I haven’t stopped the time but I think it didn’t take me much longer than 3 hours to draw all of Tarja’s hair (and it’s a loooot of hair…honestly, half of the picture consists of hair only). The rest of the portrait was done in literally no time – the shirt’s just plain black and therefore pretty uncomplicated to draw and the necklace wasn’t too much work either. Last but not least I corrected a few shadings and there I was.

Phew. What a massive difference. Directly comparing the 2014 and the 2019 drawing to each other makes me quite cheerful and, well…proud. It’s amazing how much I was able to improve just by practising and gaining more experience. No one taught me this, I achieved it all myself and I think it’s a great deal. If you’re at the beginning of being an artist yourself: don’t stop to believe in yourself and keep on drawing. You will get better with each and every artwork, although it might be hard at some points. But it’s worth it and if you look back to what was five years ago (or one year, or ten, it doesn’t matter) you can see what you’ve managed to achieve already. I highly recommend taking a look back from time to time, it might give you some fresh motivation for the way that still lies ahead of you. Because we all never stop learning. I’m curious what the next five years will bring for myself and how much I will learn. Let’s face it, I’m ready.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils (4B, 5B, 6B)

Time: approx. 7 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing: ©Universal

2019, Portraits

The Moonlight Series – Alissa White-Gluz

Miss Escapist

“Escapist flights and lengthy nights. As some succumb to slumber awakes…”

The Agonist – Birds Elope With The Sun

Those who follow me on on Instagram will already know a majority of the following text but I feel like it’s important to share it here as well. The story behind this drawing is rather important to me and I’ve received a lot of feedback from fellow artists, sharing similar stories with me. Even Alissa herself contacted me about the drawing and the story behind it, so here we go:

Finishing this drawing was a huge challenge for me, more than it should’ve been. In the middle of the drawing process, a person whose opinion I care about very much gave me some not so very positive critique on the drawing. Until that point I was rather satisfied with the artwork but after receiving that crique, I suddenly began to doubt the entire drawing. I started feeling quite bad about it and thought about not finishing it at all – and my insecurity got bigger and bigger. It was dragging me down way more than it should’ve. It took me a few days to overcome my doubts but I’m happy I did. Because: it doesn’t matter what other people say or think about my art, it’s MY art and therefore I have the freedom to draw in whatever style I want to. I don’t need to adjust to people’s opinions and the only thing that really matters is that I’m having fun while drawing and that I’m happy with the result. If others like it as well: great! If they don’t…well, that’s also fine, they don’t need to like it.

Don’t let others tell you that you’re bad at what you’re doing. Who are they to judge what’s right or wrong for you? You’re doing it your way and this makes it a good way. Don’t ever try to do something just to please others or to meet anyone’s expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should never ask for other people’s opinions or criticism. It can be very helpful. Just don’t let negativity overwhelm you and stay positive.

In the end, I’m super happy with the result and looove how the artwork turned out. As a matter of fact, I like it so much that I think of making an entire series in this style. You probably won’t be seeing part 2 of the series anytime soon as I’ve got other projects that need to be finished first. But let me assure you: it will come and it’ll be this year. I’ll draw Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil (I asked my Instagram followers to decide which metal queen will be next, this was the result, so she’ll join the series as soon as possible).

Paper size: A4

Materials: ballpoint pen, Prismacolor pencils

Time: approx. 6 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Jeremy Saffer

2019, Portraits

Sabaton – 20 Years

Miss Escapist

“Where is this greatness I’ve been told? This is the lies that we been sold.”

Sabaton – Great War

This project is one of the bigger ones that I did this year so far. I’ve had some plans concerning a Sabaton drawing for quite some time and with the release of their new album „The Great War“ and their special anniversary show at Wacken coming up, I felt like it was finally time to start drawing. I wanted the artwork to be connected to both – Sabaton and Wacken – as I had my ticket for Wacken and was definitely planning to see their show. First, I wanted the band portrait to be based on live photos of the band playing but as I couldn’t find suitable references I decided to go with “standard promo pictures” instead. The ones that I found on Sabaton’s website were exactly what I had been looking for and so I started to arrange the photos of the single band members until I had a nice group constellation. The next part was a lengthy but relatively easy-going procedure: pencil portrait time! For the background, I used acrylic colours and painted another sheet of paper with them. To bring together portrait and background, I cut out the guys and carefully glued them onto the background which was the most stressful part of this artwork – at least emotionally – as I was terribly afraid of ruining the portrait by making a mistake while cutting. It all came to a good end, though, and you can barely see the cuts at all. For Wacken, I got my drawing printed on a large flag. I took the flag with me and we hissed it in our camp for the entire seven days of the festival.

I recorded almost the entire drawing process and made time-lapse videos that I uploaded to my YouTube channel, so if you’re interested in seeing how I worked feel free to head over there (the channel is called “Miss Escapist Art”, not much of a surprise, I know…).

Paper size: A3

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, acrylic colors

Time: approx. 20 hours

Reference photos used for the drawing: taken from Sabaton’s official website

2019, Portraits

The Tuomas Holopainen Project

Miss Escapist

Now that I‘ve finally finished the Tuomas Holopainen card design, I can write a blog-post about the process of creating both – the Tuomas drawing itself and the card. I could have written something about the drawing before but as the two belong together, it just made sense for me to wait with this a little longer.

It all started with the idea of creating a new metal king card – for Tuomas. As I haven’t had any proper drawing to use for it, I decided it would be best to do a completely new drawing. I had found my reference photo quite quickly and my first intention was to start drawing with a ballpoint pen (as that had worked out for the cards quite well in the past). I started drawing Tuomas but stopped doing so somewhere in the middle of the process as it just didn’t look right in my eyes. So, I started all over again, this time with pencils. Suddenly, the drawing process got much smoother and I was way more satisfied with what I was creating there.

After having finished drawing Tuomas (which was pretty easy going after I had made the decision to use pencils instead of a ballpoint pen), I first intended to immediately start with designing the card. But as I liked the finished portrait so much, I wanted to “complete” it with a proper background. Instead of doing a realistic background drawn with pencils, I had the idea of adding something dreamier. I got out my acrylic colours and a separate sheet of paper and painted it in a bluish tone. I added sprinkles of white colour to give it a galaxy sort of look. Then, I used a gel pen to write the titles of some Nightwish songs on top of it all. Last but not least I cut out the Tuomas drawing and glued it onto the newly created “Nightwish galaxy” and done was the Tuomas Holopainen portrait.

I was pretty satisfied with the finished portrait and therefore didn’t really dare touching it again to create the card. Also, I was lacking inspiration and so it took me quite some time to get back to it. I started doing the design two or three times but stopped again because I didn’t like the result. One day at work I finally had the sparkling idea and couldn’t wait to transform it into a card as soon as I got back home. This time, the creation process only took a few hours as I already had the idea set in my mind. First, I edited the scan of Tuomas’ portrait into the required symmetrical form and added it to a blanc card. Next, I drew the pendulum symbol and the stardust using Autodesk Sketchbook. I changed their colour quite often, finally ending up with a purple tone that seemed to fit quite well. The last thing to add on top were the music notes and after a bit of finetuning and rearranging the card was done as well.

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, acrylic colours, white gel pen, Autodesk Sketchbook, GIMP

Time: approx. 12 hours

2019, Portraits

Metal Kings – Tomi Joutsen of Amorphis

Miss Escapist

“When the dawn is bright and new
And the day is full of hope
It’s easy to continue your journey
Like a king on his royal way”

Amorphis – Death of a King

After having drawn multiple metal queen cards, I felt like it was finally time to give the male part of the genre some well recognition, too. So why not start a metal king series? And I knew exactly who was going to be the first one to get a card: Tomi Joutsen, singer of Amorphis. I had done a portrait drawing of him last year and to me that drawing just seemed to fit perfectly for a card design. Luckily, I had a good scan of the drawing on my notebook and was able to start editing right away. First step was to erase the background, as I didn‘t want it in the card. After that I went on with bring the portrait into a symmetrical shape. It took me quite some time to figure out how to do that most elegantly because I didn’t want the print on his shirt to look cut off. Instead, I wanted the prints of each side to flow into each other. When I finally had my symmetrical Tomi, I added him to the empty card template. Now it was time for creativity work. I knew that the symbol I wanted to use in the frame was Ukko’s hammer as it’s a symbol often found in Amorphis‘ works. Furthermore, as a little contrast to Tomi’s rather death metal like appearance, I added some floral ornaments to the frame. The ornaments are also referring to the album „Silent Waters“ where you can find a similar arrangement on the album cover. I hoped it would emphasize the contrast often found in Amorphis‘ music – the coexistence of heaviness and growls but also clear singing and beautiful melodies. I was almost done with the card, but felt like something was still missing. All other cards that I had done before have a colorful accent found somewhere in the picture. I wasn’t really sure how to do that here. After sleeping over it for a night, inspiration finally found me. On the album cover of „Under the Red Cloud“, you can see a spiral pattern with a texture that resembles snakeskin. So I drew a very similar arrangement to embed Tomi. Colorwise, I wasn’t sure whether to pick a dark red or a more bluish tone. After trying both, I decided to go with red. As a last and final touch, I made Ukko’s hammer red as well. And there it was – the first metal king card.

Materials: Autodesk Sketchbook (+ Faber Castell blacklead pencils for the portrait)

Time: approx. 3 hours (only for the card design, drawing the portrait took 8 hours)

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Lina Glasir