Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, I've been sharing the process behind one of my biggest art challenges ever - the Christmas Countdown Challenge (which I completed back in December 2020)! This is where I draw pieces according to the song; The 12 Days of Christmas!
I'm sure everyone is familiar with that song and we're currently up to Day 10 now since we did day 9 last week - Nine Ladies Dancing!
So the next line in the song is
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree
For this one I had absolutely no idea what to draw. I didn't even know what is a lord, but now that I think about it I guess maybe it could refer to like a drunk person, because of the simile "as drunk as a lord"? And that came about probably because in the olden times the noblemen/lords could afford to drink more than the commoners.
But anyway, the only Lords I really knew of from fiction was Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter and Lord Farquad from Shrek. And obviously they had to be leaping, so this was my sketch:
I traced a simple vector of Hogwarts from this image to put in the background (which I unfortunately cannot find the source of anymore):
I initially only wanted the bottom part of Hogwarts, but this one was pretty cute so I left it the way it was.
Then it was time to colour in the background and the castle! Since this would take a longer time I decided to get it done first. I went off of this wallpaper I found online (which I also cannot find anymore unfortunately, so this is from my instagram):
I wanted some cool light effects as well, and after much blending and airbrushing, this was what I ended up with:
Then it was time colour in the castle:
I tried my best to make the vector blend in a little with the lighting effects, and I thought the lighting was cool, but the outlines might've been too strong and thick since the mountains weren't outlined. But oh well.. I think it still looked pretty good although the castle was a little out of place since the lines were so bold.
Next it was time to draw all the Lords! I couldn't really wanna draw a realistic version of Voldemort since I had to draw 10 of them, so I went with a simple one like this:
Source: redbubble
And I had to draw him leaping, obviously, so we end up with this:
And after drawing another different pose, we get this! I decided not to include Lord Farquad since he would be out of place and also he's a lot shorter than Voldemort so.
To make them slightly different, I decided to draw them with the horcruxes! So at least 6 of them would look different. If you didn't know, Voldemort has horcruxes where he split his soul and put it into a physical object to make himself sort of immortal. So there's the Ravenclaw diadem, Slytherin locket, Hufflepuff cup, his diary, snake and unintentionally, Harry himself! Woop spoiler alert.
So after adding those little accessories we get this final piece!
Overall I thought this piece was kinda meh compared to the others I've done. The background was awesome though, and I was proud with how well the light from the sun shone pretty consistently. The blending was pretty legit too. But the characters themselves were kinda meh. I mean to be fair I didn't really have much to work with since Voldemort is literally just a flat face and a black robe. So there wasn't much I could do to make him look different. Also the background took a lot of time and by the time I was done I was pretty tired and almost out of time.
So we end up with this. I tried to make the castle look like it’s not floating but I think the outlines made it stand out too much. Oh well. I think the sunshine effect looks nice tho. I’ve never really done lighting effects like that before so I thought it was cool!
Only 2 more days to go! I was pretty much done with this challenge by this point and wanted it to end so badly.. So I was really glad we were approaching the end. Stay tuned for more!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
