Sunday, July 7, 2019

Improvising Costume Details


A swashbuckling space captain stands in front of his ship. It's an implausible and silly image, but who cares?


I improvise the costume details with stuff from the closet. There's a stapler on my belt. I'm wearing an Air Force pilot jumpsuit, and that's a Hudson Bay blanket draped over my shoulders.


I switch out the blanket for a green tarp. It doesn’t matter if the color matches or if it makes sense. I'm just looking for fold reference.
 

Here's what the cover looks like from Salvage and Destroy by Edward Llewellyn.

7 comments:

  1. The finished image reminds me of the work of Kelley Freas. Very nice.

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  2. Great job, James! I had not seen this illustration before. I always enjoy seeing the preliminary work. So much that can be learned by studying a finished drawing or painting along with some of the initial work, including reference material. We can never stop learning.

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  3. Those beautiful curving folds on the left side have hardly anything to do with the improvised costume reference IMO.

    You may have added/invented those classical lines which I often find hanging in the robes and clothing lobes of ancient paintings and sculptures of the Holy Virgin.

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  4. It’s helpful and inspiring to see your reference methods...anything is possible with ingenuity and imagination. Thank you for sharing.

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  5. Great to see how freely you used your reference James, thank you for sharing this. One question: Is the final painting in oil or gouache, I really can't tell.

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  6. Thank you James! You are an inspiration. The illustration is very beautiful. The whole design of the captain is very well done!

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