Shakespeare Shaken - Pt. 1

Since the Shakespeare Shaken Anthology is now available to the public, I can finally post images of my contributions!

The hardest part about this entire project was waiting to share my work online, especially considering that several of these illustrations are some of my strongest work.

I'll be posting behind-the-scenes images all throughout the month. Process animations, photo reference, you name it. Pretty much everything I've been keeping under my hat since last January finally gets to come out. Prints of these fine illustrations are now available for sale online, both in my Etsy store and in my new RedBubble store.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER SHAKESPEARE SHAKEN

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PRINTS OF MY WORK

Let's start with my Shakespearean bodice ripper, The Legend of The Ass Man!

The Ass Man was one of those rare and delightful anomalies where everything came together quickly and easily. This piece was an absolute joy to work on and I definitely enjoy the finished product more when the creation process is painless.

I pulled my inspiration from the very distinctive visual style of trashy romance novels. We all know the type: there's a muscular, conspicuously shirtless, Fabio-lookin' dude passionately clutching some swooning crinoline-covered beauty.

My brother Robert and sister-in-law Stacia were in visiting us when I first started working on this piece and they were gracious enough to pose for my reference shots. (You may recognize Stacia as the model I used for Magdalene)

I used cicada wings for the faeries, since I've always found them more appealing and solid looking than dragonfly wings. I also decided that faeries probably wouldn't think about clothing as something meant to conceal their bodies (They live in the woods! What's there to be shy about?), but rather as a means to adorn themselves. I clothed the center faerie in plants and the far-right one in a flimsy tunic. Originally, it was going to be made of something resembling spanish moss, but I eventually opted for gossamer fabric instead. I had also been planning on covering the far-left faerie in lichen, but I just couldn't make it look right.

The medium for this piece was mostly watercolors and colored pencil, although there was some digital work done on it before the end. What I'd do for the most part was put down a large area of color using the paints and then work in the details with colored pencils. At the very end I found that I'd picked a color combination for the center faerie that I hated.

The values were all correct, but the color reminded me of a frog and not in a good way. Rather than erase it all and start over, I scanned it in and used my (then) brand spanking new Wacom tablet to isolate that part of the image so I could alter it digitally. Worked like a charm!

The linework took about 20 hours and that's because I went into far more detail than was necessary on the flowers and leaves that adorned the trio of faeries. After transferring the piece down to watercolor paper, the final art took about a week. Designing the book's text and placing the image in context took another 8 hours, for a grand total of 60 hours start-to-finish.

Next Up: 

Detective Horatio!