Tag: Alissa White-Gluz

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

2018, Portraits

Designing Cards

Miss Escapist

Maria Brink

In This Moment

Alissa White-Gluz

Arch Enemy

Floor Jansen

Northward & Nightwish

The idea for turning some of my drawings into card designs was actually born quite a while ago – to be more precisely, after I had drawn Maria Brink. I edited the drawing digitally to get it into a proper symmetrical form and then added a card layout to it. I never properly uploaded the picture, though. Same goes for the Alissa White-Gluz card, I created it a few months later and it also never found its way online. I just never felt like anyone would be interested in these cards as they were basically just an edit of drawings that already existed. As the end of the year was coming closer, I decided to give it a try and uploaded my first card design – and got an overwhelmingly positive response. So I felt encourage to upload the second card as well and even create a third card right away – Floor Jansen. I used the Northward drawing that I had done before for the edit. To my surprise, when I opened Instagram again after uploading that card, the first thing that I saw was my work – on Floor Jansen’s page. She seemed to have stumbled upon it and even liked it enough to repost it on her profile. Needless to say that I was rather speechless about this and felt very honoured.

Materials: GIMP, Autodesk Sketchbook

Time: approx. 5 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing were taken by: Jeremy Saffer (Maria Brink), Tim Tronckoe (Alissa White-Gluz), Northward album cover (Floor Jansen)

2018, Portraits

Floor + Alissa = Floorlissa ?

Miss Escapist

“One for all
All for one
We are strong
We are one”

Arch Enemy – Nemesis

The idea for this portrait was actually suggested to me by one of my Instagram followers and I liked it so much that I just had to draw it immediately. That idea was to merge the faces of Floor Jansen and Alissa White-Gluz in one portrait. I spent quite some time searching for good reference photos as the angles of the pictures had to be the same so that I could do a proper face merge. Luckily, I found two pictures that went together perfectly and was able to start drawing. At first, I wanted to do a regular pencil portrait but then I changed my mind and went with a ballpoint pen instead. I started off with Alissa’s half and then went over to drawing Floor. During the process I always had to cover the other half of the face because it was way too confusing to see a completely different face there. I tended to bring trademarks of Alissa’s face into Floor’s and the other way around so covering was the best that I could do. The first time that I had a closer look at the entire face merge wasn’t before the portrait was finished and I think it looks cool and confusing at the same time.

Paper size: A4

Materials: ballpoint pen

Time: approx. 8 hours

Reference photos used for the drawing were taken by: Fradellafra Fotografie (Alissa’s photo) & Steve Brown (Floor’s photo)

2018, Other Artworks

Mermay 2018

Miss Escapist

Mermay – what the heck is that supposed to be? and wasn’t Inktober already enough? Apparently, it wasn’t as another drawing challenge had caught my eye. It’s basically like Inktober – 31 days, 31 prompts, 31 drawings – but this time they were all about mermaids and not about the medium ink. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of drawings for Mermay because my calendar was already stuffed for May. But I wanted to give things a try anyway and I had a few very special mermaids in mind. My basic idea was to combine drawing portraits of my favourite musicians and make just give them some fins. And that’s exactly what I did.

Alissa White-Gluz

Arch Enemy

Simone Simons

Epica

Christopher Bowes

Alestorm

Shagrath

Dimmu Borgir

Paper size: A4

Materials: blacklead pencil, chalk pastels

Time: approx. 60 minutes per drawing

2017, Portraits

An Alissa Ballpoint Pen Experiment

Miss Escapist

“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

2017, Portraits

Alissa White-Gluz – But This Time In Colour

Miss Escapist

“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. 🙂

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell coloured pencils

Time: approx. 8 hours

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

2014, Portraits

Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy

Miss Escapist

“There’s something inside me
And I know it’s good, I’m not evil”

Arch Enemy – You Will Know My Name

Though still traumatized by my Tarja portrait, I decided it was time for another attempt of drawing faces. It wasn’t so very hard too choose a reference as I had wanted to draw Alissa White-Gluz for quite a long time. Not only because I really enjoy her music but also because she makes such a good portrait reference. I mean…are there any bad pictures of her? I ended up choosing a photo where she looked directly into the camera so I wouldn’t have to deal with akward perspectives again. And it turned out to be the right decission as I had way less difficulties when drawing. Even though I drew most of it on the train! After finishing the portrait I spontaneously added a bit of colour to the hair. There’s just no Alissa without colourful hair.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead and coloured pencils

Time: approx. 5 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Patric Ullaeus