Medusa- Frozen Love

For Printmaking II, we are starting screen printing.  We had to get our theme from a randomly chosen conversation heart, and I chose Get Real.  I decided to explore the subject with what is and isn't real and things that can alter their state of (non)being.

I finally got to use an idea I've had for almost six years: 

Medusa draped around a statue of a man with a sad look in her eye; the man was a lover and she inadvertently turned him to stone.  She will live in even more sorrow for the rest of her life.

 I'm considering adding text to the final piece due to the amount of negative space left on the 10"x10" format we are using.

I am titling this differently than the screen printed  piece since that one will end up having "get real" placed in the title to show it as part of the assignment.

Edit: (12:15am) I really enjoyed this piece, especially exploring styles for shading, coloring, and creating her snaky hair.  I figured out a technique in Photoshop and think I will try more Mucha-inspired art in the future.

All the previous color ideas: link

Daeva: Kiss of the Succubus (Mature)

Daeva, from Vampire: the Requiem, is the clan of vampires who embody all the sexual attributes vampires are given in fiction.  For them, sexual lust and bloodlust are the same.  Beautiful and decadent, they use these qualities to lure in victims, supplying them with the most amazing sensual experience ever in return for blood.

I ended up recycling a pose from the drawing I'd done of Brooke and Erin last summer, but cleaned it up for this.  I still haven't gotten to do my idea of bodies under the bed, but maybe that is something I'll have to add to a future picture sans this specific pose.

I really need to mix things up with a hetero vamp & victim one of these days.

Yokai Screen

Originally the screen was supposed to have a Hyakki Yakō (demon parade) on it but I couldn't find a good print of one and didn't have time to draw something to complicated in two weeks.  Instead I went with Mitsukini Defying the Skeleton Spectre by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.  The shoji screen was also supposed to be old and haunted with eyes showing through, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without looking cartoonish.  I was also going to include some hitodama (will-o-wisp souls) but it was a bit too much.

The yokai are:
A kitsune, a fox that turns into a woman to seduce men.  Often they will marry the man and even bear him children before something happens to make her leave, like the family getting a dog, which kitsune fear.
A nekomata, a two-tailed monster cat that stands up on its hind legs, drinks lamp oil and can reanimate corpses.
An Onryō, a ghost of revenge, seen in movies like Juon: The Grudge, Shutter, and Ringu.  Filled with hatred from abuse during their life, they come back for vengeance, unfortunately the one(s) who wronged them often go unscathed while people who just happen to get in its way become victims.  
A Noppera-bō, a trickster ghost with no face.  Sometimes mujina (raccoon dogs or badgers) will take on their appearance to mess with humans.  Noppera-bō will impersonate someone famous or close to the human and then make their features disappear.

Work In Progress

Cat from: ~Loopyker_stock

Jorougumo (Nudity)

  

The Jorōgumo, or "spider whore," is a spider that can turn itself into a seductive woman in order to capture and eat men.

I depicted her as an oiran, or the highest class of prostitute.  The hairstyle and ornaments are a lot more complicated than a geisha's.

Female Yokai Series 2 Test Prints

The final is still hanging up at school, so here are the tests.

Futakuchi-onna, the "two-mouth woman."

I really liked the line art for this one and had considered just leaving it and watercoloring it instead of aquatinting. I was quite happy with the open bite effect on the eye, which I feel added a sparkle. I was encouraged to stylize her, so despite the fact I used an Asian girl as a reference, she came out looking more like a Amano heroine.

Ref from ~b-e-c-k-y-stock


The aquatint ruined the eyes, in my opinion, as the sparkle got covered up. I had thought I blocked it out, but I guess I didn't. The sushi came about better though.


Ohaguro-bettari appears as a Japanese bride with black teeth and no other facial features.

I had already blocked out the face before it occurred to me to give her a shadow similar to the blue ones in manga and anime. I didn't really have time to do a second aquatint, so hopefully this looks alright. I also forgot to add flowers to the headdress. The lace I used for the softground had beads on it and put holes through a felt because we didn't think to loosen the press or cut them off. Luckily the pattern came out really well and the felt was old.



The Kuchisake-onna, the "slit-face woman."

Oh my gosh this one was trouble. The ref pic was of sitting in this pose, chest up, so trying to get the arms and shoulders right was a bit difficult. I considered dressing her in '70s attire since she's more of a legend than ancient Japanese monster, down to Farrah Fawcett hair, but she kind of looked like a Jokerfied version of Jack the Ripper. The outfit didn't even look sightly feminine despite copying an old fashion magazine. Mike helped me rework the pose and it actually started to look good with a kimono. Then the aquatint happened. The line etching wasn't dark enough, and the nose started disappearing. Also, the shading in general was too dark and blotchy. It kind of got fixed with some burnishing. That version will be uploaded next semester when I get it back from being hung up.

Futakuchi-onna Lolita

A futakuchi-onna, a two-mouthed woman, is a yokai (roughly translated as a "ghost" or "monster" in Japan) that is a thin woman who doesn't eat enough (often due to a miser husband) who grows a second mouth who eats twice as much as she would normally.

While I was working on my futakuchi-onna for Printmaking, I decided I wanted to make a character of one. She doesn't have a name yet, but I'd like to make some sort of little comic of her maybe, or just do more pics of her.

I might make some other cute yokai girls.

edit: oh darn, I just noticed her skirt is a little too short for lolita... grr.

Kitsune Process

My reduction woodcut was a kitsune, the Japanese word for fox. They can disguise themselves as women to seduce men. More info can be found in my previous entry.

Out of all the processes I learned during this semester, this was my favorite. If I can get in the print lab during the summer, I think I'll do some personal work in this way.

Sphinx WIP

So it's the last weekend before the semester ends. My sphinx painting is due next Thursday, but I finally got the first coat down earlier this week. Sorry for the photo quality; I took it with my phone as my good camera was at home.

In printmaking my copper plates are etched, aquatinted, and just need to have the soft ground etched into them, which I'll do tomorrow.

I'm going to spend the next couple hours working on the Clone Your Lover storyboards.

Futakuchi-onna WIP

Just a quick little upload. The two-mouthed woman is the first of three yokai I'm doing for my final Printmaking project.

I'll be working on etching this today when I'm done adding the next layer of color to my kitsune woodcut.

Ref photo from: B-e-c-k-y-stock

Kitsune Drawing

Done for Printmaking, this isn't cleaned up quite as it's just an image for transferring. It's been suggested I finish this as a digital painting, refining the tails and background.

For printmaking, this will be turned into a reduction woodcut.

Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox. According to legend, foxes will often turn into women to take a human lover.

When I was looking up information on kitsune on Wikipedia, I came across a story describing one such scenario, and I found the supposed origin of the word to be quite pretty.

Ono, an inhabitant of Mino (says an ancient Japanese legend of A.D. 545), spent the seasons longing for his ideal of female beauty. He met her one evening on a vast moor and married her. Simultaneously with the birth of their son, Ono's dog was delivered of a pup which as it grew up became more and more hostile to the lady of the moors. She begged her husband to kill it, but he refused. At last one day the dog attacked her so furiously that she lost courage, resumed vulpine shape, leaped over a fence and fled.

"You may be a fox," Ono called after her, "but you are the mother of my son and I love you. Come back when you please; you will always be welcome."

So every evening she stole back and slept in his arms.

Because the fox returns to her husband each night as a woman but leaves each morning as a fox, she is called Kitsune. In classical Japanese, kitsu-ne means come and sleep, and ki-tsune means always comes.

Photo reference from: SpectralFairyStock

Sphinx Compositions

For Alma Prima, my next painting is going to be a sphinx, a mythological creature I've always liked and thought of as quite pretty, though her consumptions of people makes her a monster. I feel similarly about Medusa, and like to portray her attractively.

The wings on the bottom two are not final, and I'm not sure how colorful they'll be.

I also am not sure yet whether I'll do it realistically or do it more stylized.

refs:
Lions: ~Rensstocknstuff ~NefaroStock
Wings: ~solarka-stock ~Phoenix-Cry

Female Monsters Series 1

My final print for the etching assignment in Printmaking. This is part of what I hope will be an ongoing series of female monsters.

The first is a pananggalan, a Malaysian monster that detaches its head at night and drinks the blood of children and pregnant women. More info can be found here.

From here I decided to continue with a motif of heads surrounded by undulating, twisted tubes of some sort.

The second is Medusa, the Gorgon from Greek mythology that was killed by Perseus. Her hair was snakes and her eyes turned victims to stone.

The third is a Japanese yokai known as a Rokurokubi, a woman whose neck stretches at night so she can play tricks on drunk men and fools. I tried to replicate the look of a tradition ukiyo-e print.

All are copper etchings. I used Aquatint on all three, and softground on the latter two.

References:
Penangalan
Yokai

Harionago Drawing

In Printmaking, we are starting woodcutting, and were given a small piece of wood to practice on. I decided I actually wanted to make one to go with the rest of my monster women series. So far I've done a Penanggalan, Medusa, and a rokurokubi. I'm also going to be doing a futakuchi-onna.

This one is a harionago, a yokai with barbed hair. Despite being a Japanese ghost, her hair style and outfit are kind of influenced by some Korean and Chinese artwork I've seen. This is just a template for the woodcut. I'll transfer it later tonight and do some prints this week.

Etching Sketches

So this week in Printmaking, we started copper etchings. As it is the month of Halloween, I mean October, I decided I wanted to do monsters. The first week of school I came up with the idea of doing a pananggalan woodcut, thinking a skinny vertical format would be useful when I finally send work to White Wolf. Now though, I'm doing it as an etching and considering doing a werewolf for the woodcutting.

Keith first told me about the pananggalan, though he didn't know the word at the time, and I've had an interest in them since. He had combined it with an old story about a woman with a (sometimes green) red ribbon that, when removed by her husband, made her head fall off. A pananggalan is a Malaysian vampire that removes its head and entrails, then flies around drinking the blood of pregnant women and children. When it returns in the morning to its body, it needs to soak its guts in vinegar to shrink them back down so they fit.

A couple weeks ago, I bought my very first World of Darkness book (Night Horrors: The Wicked Dead,) and it actually included a pananggalan among some other cool vampiric creatures from around the world. It also had artwork by Michael J. Williams, an alumni of Kendall who has visited a couple times to teach the digital classes about Painter. The book has great info and has been giving me great inspiration.

The first one was a bit too tight and medical-bookish.

For the second one I extended the intestines, as pananggalans use them to grab victims, and it adds more movement to her floating.

This is the version I went with, though it received a few more tweaks so most of the intestines are actually connected. Pananggalans only have the esophagus, stomach, ad intestines connected, so I removed the extra organs.

Some of my previous printmaking work got handed back, so if I remember to bring it home this weekend, I'll scan some of it.


Ref for organs in first sketch: TurboSquid
Ref for face: so-hood-stock

Celest-Sleep in Flame Colored

I'm happy to finally have a picture from the Demon Game colored. This is from when Celest fell asleep the first night home from the hospital and starting dreaming about a mysterious man smoking a cigarillo, only to wake up on fire. Her living room was severely damaged, as were her clothes, though I decided to leave them on for this.

Pose from: Tess-Stock
Carpet Texture from: b-a88

Vampire & Fairy Tale Finals

Ahh, finals. I finished my magnetic paper dolls and my banner is printed for any future cons.

ColorInc printed my vampires on a silk banner. It got a lot of abuse this weekend, including through a rainstorm, and it doesn't show it.



The magnets had to be cut out by hand with an X-acto blade because I didn't have enough time to get it done by the DigiFabLab.


Red is wearing a gothic outfit based on designs by Lip Service, with an optional Big Bad Wolf-fur-trimmed coat and boots, Belle/Beauty is dressed as a Sweet Lolita (credit of fashion inspiration later,) and Rapunzel is a cyber-raver. final pic, so that'll have to come later.

My watercolors didn't get finished enough in the teacher's opinion, but I've been given some extra time. Once I get some sleep and don't have a digital media project due every other day I should be able to get my painting done well enough.

I forgot to scan my zombie

After I kill enough time watching TV I'll sleep the night and wake up to finish my Gay Marriage editorial cartoon for Social Criticism.

My business stuff finally got printed after a weekend of broken printers and empty toner. Most of them look great and the blog for it is here. If it's my professional blog, I'm not sure what this one is, but I'm not shutting this one down any time soon. This one will just have more talking.

Vampires in Winter

Closeup: