Tag: Portrait

“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

Elize Ryd of Amaranthe

“I am the fuel to set you free
I am your destiny”

Amaranthe – Hunger

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”

Arch Enemy

“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

An Alissa Ballpoint Pen Experiment

“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

Alissa White-Gluz – But This Time In Colour

“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

Maisie Williams

“I’m going to kill the queen.”

Arya Stark (Game of Thrones)

What’s better than one Game of Thrones inspired artwork? Two Game of Thrones inspired artworks! Once again, I had difficulties deciding, so I ended up picking a character randomly – Arya Stark. I wasn’t really able to find a reference picture of Arya that convinced me, though, so I searched for pictures of Maisie Williams instead. Close enough, I thought. For this portrait I wanted to try something new and draw an entirely coloured portrait. Luckily, I had the right set of colours at hand, so I started drawing immediately. During the drawing process I had some difficulties with shading – I usually draw with very soft pencils and the coloured pencils that I used for this one were a lot harder. I really struggled with getting depth into her face and make the entire thing look three-dimensional. Nevertheless, the result looks kinda like Maisie, so I’ll stop complaining. Apart from the shading I was rather satisfied with how the portrait turned out and decided to do another coloured portrait soon.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell coloured pencils

Time: approx. 8 hours

2016, Portraits

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

“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

2016, Portraits

Dianne Van Giersbergen

“All hear the oceans howling
Voices of the Fallen”

Xandria – Voyage Of The Fallen

When I went to see Powerwolf live last year, Xandria were the opening act. Until that day I had known Xandria but never payed to much attention to them. For me they had always been “just another symphonic metal band” that didn’t stand out in any way. Seeing them live definitely changed my opinion because they were absolutely amazing. Dianne’s stage presence and her incredible voice have proven me wrong. I listened to Xandria’s discography after that concert and I soon came to realise the reason why I had never particularly liked Xandria before: I only liked those songs sung by Dianne. But I liked that ones a looot. So I decided to give Dianne her own portrait. I used a different paper than usual for drawing, a rather rough one with a lot of texture. And if I’ve learned one thing from it it’s that I’ll never do it again. No matter how hard I tried, the shadings always looked a bit weird and I just wasn’t able to make the skin look as smooth as I wanted it to. Also, the perspective is kinda messed up. The hair, on the other hand, turned out quite good and I guess in the end the portrait doesn’t look too bad. At least you can see the parallels to Dianne.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 5 hours

2016, Portraits

Tarja and Anette