Tag: Epica

2019, Portraits

Simone Simons Card Design

Miss Escapist

“Only you is what you’ll be
All you are is what you see”

Epica – The Holographic Principle

Every now and then I pick up someone’s birthday as an opportunity to start a new portrait – and in this case, it’s Simone Simons again. I immediately thought of the metal queen card designs that I had done before as Simone definitely deserves a spot in the list of my favourite metal ladies. As I had just bought myself a new convertible, this also gave me the perfect excuse for trying out Autodesk Sketchbook on it. I had never drawn digitally before, so it was bound to become a challenge right from the start. Doing the first sketch wasn’t so very complicated but getting the shadings right was. It took me quite some time to get used to the new drawing dynamic and although the convertible also reacts to applied pressure changes it’s not quite the same than it would’ve been with a pencil. All of the lines that I drew were either too soft or too harsh in the beginning. I slowly started getting used to it, though, and the final result didn’t look as bad as I had feared. I took the finished portrait and edited it to match the blanco card design, then I added a few extra details and the Epica logo before I was finally done

Materials: Autodesk Sketchbook

Time: approx. 8 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Tim Tronckoe

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

How I Got My Epica Artworks Signed

Miss Escapist

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.

2017, Other Artworks

It’s Epica – Again

Miss Escapist

“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”

2016, Portraits

The Project That Took Me Almost Entire 2016 To Finish It…

Miss Escapist

“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