Tag: Tarja Turunen

2019, Portraits

Redrawing Tarja

Miss Escapist

“Promises mean everything
Life won’t look back for you”

Tarja – Dead Promises

I’ve been actively drawing for about five years now. This felt like a good time to make a cut, take a step back and look at what I’ve achieved in those five years. I knew that I’ve made quite some progress when it comes to my drawing skills – I’m having way less trouble with drawing nasty details, especially hair, and  overall the results just look better than they did when I started. But I was curious on what would happen if I drew one of my old portraits with the skills that I have nowadays. So I decided to do a redraw.

Back in 2014, Tuomas and Tarja of Nightwish were the first portraits I ever drew. As I had just done a new Tuomas portrait, it was clearly Tarja’s turn now. Also, August seemed like a fiiting time to pull off this redraw-project: Tarja’s birthday is in the middle of August and also she’s close to releasing a new album (tomorrow, as a matter of fact).

No need to search for a refrence picture this time, as I’d be using exactly the same refrence as five years ago. So I jumped right into it and started by doing a rough outline sketch. After that, I began working on the face which I was able to finish quite quickly. This time, the kinda “weird” angle of her face didn’t cause me as much trouble as it did the first time. Drawing the hair, though, was probably the biggest revelation for me – until that point I hadn’t realised HOW MUCH I had actually improved. Not only did the result look so much better and way more realistic, it also took me a rather small amount of time. I haven’t stopped the time but I think it didn’t take me much longer than 3 hours to draw all of Tarja’s hair (and it’s a loooot of hair…honestly, half of the picture consists of hair only). The rest of the portrait was done in literally no time – the shirt’s just plain black and therefore pretty uncomplicated to draw and the necklace wasn’t too much work either. Last but not least I corrected a few shadings and there I was.

Phew. What a massive difference. Directly comparing the 2014 and the 2019 drawing to each other makes me quite cheerful and, well…proud. It’s amazing how much I was able to improve just by practising and gaining more experience. No one taught me this, I achieved it all myself and I think it’s a great deal. If you’re at the beginning of being an artist yourself: don’t stop to believe in yourself and keep on drawing. You will get better with each and every artwork, although it might be hard at some points. But it’s worth it and if you look back to what was five years ago (or one year, or ten, it doesn’t matter) you can see what you’ve managed to achieve already. I highly recommend taking a look back from time to time, it might give you some fresh motivation for the way that still lies ahead of you. Because we all never stop learning. I’m curious what the next five years will bring for myself and how much I will learn. Let’s face it, I’m ready.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils (4B, 5B, 6B)

Time: approx. 7 hours

Reference photo used for the drawing: ©Universal

2016, Portraits

Tarja and Anette

Miss Escapist

“The faces of the past keep calling me to come back home, to caress the river with awe”

Nightwish – Rest Calm

When it comes to Nightwish it seems to be people’s favourite activity fight over who is / was the best singer. I usually don’t participate in such debates as I think that every singer brought something unique and valuable into the band. They’re all so very different, why should I even bother comparing them with one another instead of just enjoying their music? With this thought in my head I decided to do a portrait of both, Tarja and Anette, standing right next to each other. Because I wanted to respect both previous singers in the same way. So I searched for reference pictures, got out my pencils and then started drawing. I needed a surprisingly short amount of time to finish drawing both ladies and all that was left to do was shading the background.

Paper size: A4

Materials: Faber Castell blacklead pencils

Time: approx. 5 hours

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