“I’m stronger than I ever knew I’m strong because of you”
In This Moment – Roots
As doing a portrait with a ballpoint pen had worked out once already, I decided it was time to give that tool a second try. This time I picked a photo of Maria Brink as a reference – it was about time to draw her, I had never done so before. Most of her outfit is just black so I drew those parts first. Then I went on with drawing the face and after that her hair. Then I did a rough sketch of her crownlike headpiece with the ballpoint pen and added a bit of colour to it with a golden gel marker. Finally, I added a decorative circle in the background and did the writing
Paper size: A4
Materials: ballpoint pen
Time: approx. 3 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Jeremy Saffer
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.
A few weeks
before releasing “The Shadow Theory” Kamelot announced an artwork
contest: The person who did the best artwork based on their new album cover
would get the chance to meet with the band before one of their shows on their
upcoming world tour. Of course, Kamelot didn’t need to tell me that twice and I
immediately decided I was in for the challenge. I did not feel like changing
lot in the album artwork itself as it was already amazing – instead I just
wanted to bring my own artistical style to it. First, I did the basic shading
for the background with acrylic colours, then I continued with adding the
details to it. I thought it might be a nice contrast to the rest of the
painting, to draw the woman in the centre with blacklead pencils instead of
using acrylic colours, too. So I started drawing her with my pencils but I soon
came to realise that the paper wasn’t really suitable for pencil works. She
just didn’t look good at all but I didn’t want to throw the rest of the drawing
away and so I came up with an alternative. I got out the paper that I usually
use for pencil drawings and started drawing again. After I was done with that,
I cut out the figure and glued it on top of my earlier attempt and – voila –
done was my entry for the contest.
End of the story is that I never heard anything
from that contest again – either I didn’t win and they only informed the
winner(s) privately. Or they completely forgot about the contest. I don’t know
but I like my artwork anyway.
Paper size: A4
Materials: acrylic colours, Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: approx. 8 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing: album cover for “The Shadow Theory”
This
painting resulted from a spontaneous outburst of creativity that I had while
listening to Nightwish’s “Dark Chest of Wonders”. Suddenly, I had
this clear vision in front of my inner eye and I just had to paint it before losing
it again. The painting itself is rather simple and so it didn’t take me too
much time to finish it. Despite its simplicity, it still contains a lot of
small references and hints that I’d like to write down here.
“Follow
the pale moonlight” was the key phrase for making a big moon centre of the
image. Turning the moon into a gigantic clock that strikes twelve results from
the lyrics that say, “One night the clock struck twelve” – that’s a
rather obvious one, yes. The refrain which says, “Fly to a dream”
made me paint the silhouette of a flying owl (and of course it’s an owl,
because it’s Nightwish). On the other hand, that passage also reminded me of
Peter Pan and his flight to never-never land. So I felt like you might also see
a city silhouette, that perhaps resembles London a bit, in the picture. On the
rooftops, i painted the silhouette of a little child, starring up into the night
sky, maybe watching the owl flying (“Once there was a child’s dream”
– maybe this child is dreaming of flying away like the owl does one day.)
“The window open wide” is the reason why I painted a clearly visible
and enlightened window into the dark city silhouette. It might easily be the
way that the little child used when it “took a step outside” to climb
to the rooftop.
Interpreting
the lyrics of the song is of course entirely up to you but this is the image
that I get when listening the song.
“Always keep on fighting my friend. There’s a reason to believe.”
Arch Enemy – Reason To Believe
Question 1: Have I already drawn Arch Enemy before? Yes. Question 2: Are there a ton of other bands whom I still need to draw? Yes. So the most logical thing would’ve been to just draw any other band, but nope. I ended up drawing Arch Enemy again. But I had a good excuse: I had a VIP ticket for their concert, so I’d be able to get another drawing signed there. A drawing that I didn’t even have yet. But there were still 3 weeks left to draw another band portrait – and that’s exactly what I did. This time I drew Alissa first and especially the details on her shirt took me a while to finish them. I continued drawing on Alissa’s right side, adding Michael and then Sharlee to the picture (I have this bad habit of starting somewhere in the centre or even on the right side of the picture, which leaves me working from right to left. As a right-handed person that’s kinda stupid but I’m always doing it again). Then I added Daniel and Jeff. At first, I left Daniels arm empty because I only had three days left until the concert and I wasn’t sure if I’d manage to finish the entire drawing in time. And I felt like drawing the background was a bit more important at that point as that would be the place where the signatures go. Luckily, I managed to finish the entire drawing in time – WITH Daniels tattoos.
Paper size: A3
Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: approx. 14 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Katja Kuhl
With October coming up it was time to draw another metal lady – Elize Ryd from Amaranthe. As her birthday is in the middle of October it seemed to be the perfect time to draw a portrait of her. Finding reference photos wasn’t very difficult but choosing one was. When I had finally decided, I started with sketching and shading Elize’s face. I worked from top to bottom in this portrait, starting with the head, then going down to the shoulders, her dress, the arm and finally her corset (or whatever it is). The very last and final thing to draw were all the tiny sequins on her dress, that took me quite some time to draw but also gave the portrait it’s final touch. I left the background empty because I didn’t really know how to fill it at that time but I promised myself that I’d complete the drawing one day.
Paper size: A4
Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils
Time: approx. 11 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing: cover of the album “Amaranthe”
“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
“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
“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
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”
Miss Escapist Art 