Tag: drawing

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

2014, Other Artworks

Tulips – Sketch

Miss Escapist

“In the meadow of sinful thoughts every flower’s perfect”

Nightwish – She’s My Sin

This sketch came to life shortly after my grandma had given me a box of wax crayons as a present. The last time I had worked with wax crayons had been ages ago when I still went to school and I didn’t really enjoy working with them at that time. But as they were a gift I decided to give them a second chance. As I had absolutely no idea what to draw I ended up with the thing that I had right in front of my nose: a bunch of tulips. It’s a rather sketchy and messy drawing and to be honest it didn’t make me want to use that medium more often.

Paper size: A4

Materials: wax crayons

Time: approx. 1 hour

2014, Portraits

Elf – A Face Study

Miss Escapist

“Songs as a seduction of sirens
The elf-folk is calling me”

Nightwish – Elvenpath

This particular drawing was an artwork that I only created because my best friend had asked me to do so. I still felt quite insecure drawing portraits, especially without a reference. Yeah…the things we do for friends. She wanted an elven portrait so she got one.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 2,5 hours

2014, Other Artworks

A Random Falcon Sketch

Miss Escapist

“The age I learned to fly
And took a step outside”

Nightwish – Dark Chest of Wonders

There’s not too much that I can say about this drawing as it was a rather spontaneous sketch. I wanted to practice drawing animals and as I’ve always had a fable for birds I ended up scrolling through Google to look at different images of flying falcons. Then I got out my sketchbook and started drawing. What you can see above is the result of that study.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 1 hour

2014, Other Artworks

The Heart of Everything

Miss Escapist

“See what you’ve become, don’t sacrifice, it’s truly the heart of everything”

Within Temptation – The Heart of Everything

Another rather sketchy experiment – only this time it wasn’t Nightwish but Within Temptation inspired. I had always been a huge fan of the album cover for Within Temptation’s “The Heart of Everything” as I like the constellation and the use of symbolism in it. So why not draw it? The drawing process went quite well, if you overlook the fact that I had some difficulties with the half-transparent blindfold that somehow didn’t look like it was suppossed to.

Paper size: A5

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 90 minutes

Reference photo used for the drawing: cover of the album “The Heart of Everything”

2014, Other Artworks

Angel of Grief

Miss Escapist

“I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel tonight”

Nightwish – Wish I Had An Angel

Part 3 of my Nightwish inspired drawing obsession in spring 2014.

Frustrated by the previous experiences that I had made with drawing Tarja I decided to quit drawing faces for a little while. Instead I took the album cover of Nightwish’s “Once” and used the depicted Angel of Grief as a reference for my next drawing. It’s really more a sketch than a proper drawing and I didn’t spend too much time with it.

Paper size: A5

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 30 minutes

Reference photo used for the drawing: cover of the album “Once”

2014, Portraits

Tarja Turunen of Nightwish

Miss Escapist

“Think of me long enough to make a memory, come bless the child one more time”

Nightwish – Bless The Child

Part 2 of my Nightwish inspired drawing obsession in spring 2014.

I drew this portrait of Nightwish’s former vocalist Tarja Turunen only a few weeks after I had finished the Tuomas portrait. I still remember struggling a lot with this drawing. Tarja’s face and the perspective really drove me crazy as I had nearly no drawing experience. Nowadays I think that this is probably the crappiest thing that I’ve ever created but I wanted to include it in here nevertheless.

I tend to be a very critical person and always look for things to improve in my drawings. That’s not necessarily bad but from time to time this habit prevents me from seeing the good things in my art. So this Tarja portrait is an important reminder for me that I shouldn’t be too critical with myself and that I’ve actually achieved a lot since I started drawing.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, charcoal

Time: approx. 4 hours

2014, Portraits

Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish

Miss Escapist

“Virgin snow beneath my feet
Painting the world in white 
I tread the way and lose myself into a tale”

Nightwish – Escapist

How it all began…

Back on a sunny day in 2014 I sat on my balcony, enjoyed the sun and listened to my favourite band Nightwish. I suddenly felt the urge to create something that was dedicated to them – as a sort of tribute. So I got myself a sheet of paper and a few pencils. I quickly decided that my darwing should be a portrait of Tuomas – as he was the bands founder, composer and mastermind. I wasnt really sure how to begin as I had rarely ever drawn portraits before. I started scribbling nevertheless and ended up with this.

That portrait had started a fire in me that still keeps burning today and I got strangely “obsessed” with drawing my favourite musicians.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils, charcoal

Time: approx. 4 hours