Ladybug

 

Had a productive day of art.
Nothing grand, but a big one for me.

No work today because of the public holiday. I was lounging around, can't recall how I got onto think about it, but had the idea to create print-ready portraits of characters from Hades using old depictions of them. Like statues from antiquity. Also get some character design practice in, studying Jen Zee's art style (with no intention to copy/mimic, just zero in on what I like about them so much).

I whipped up reference sheets for Aphrodite, Dionysus and Demeter, then went to Office Works to print them. I didn't want to be using a screen as I sketch the character in my sketchbook, and I think that was a really nice exercise. 

I've since decided to not use references from antiquity art for the poses - turns out that's been done quite a bit already. I think it could be okay if I tried my own hand at doing it, but it actually didn't feel like an exciting idea from the beginning - I just figured it could help with anatomy if I found a photo of a marble statue one of the gods.

So, here's Aphrodite as she appears in Hades, designed by Jen Zee.
Studying and then drawing her was fascinating, there were a few details I never picked up on, like that I think it must be an olive plant used in the laurel, including a few actual olive fruits. 

Anyway, so this isn't print-ready. But, it's a sketch I could use for something someday if I wanted to pursue it further.