MI Renaissance Festival 2010

It should also come as no surprise that in the 'off season' I spend a lot of time thinking about which costume I shall wear next and what I need to make it.

This year I chose to make a griffin costume... enter mass quantities of fur, feathers and assorted yarn, lots and lots of planning and some very lucky thrift store purchases. The mask, bra and fur/feather belt were made by yours truly. Kudos to my mom though for the crochet work along the top of my yarn skirt! (One of these days I really must learn how to crochet.)

My sister went with a phoenix theme and we decided to use a lot of different colors of fabric to simulate a fire effect. In the end it's a bit different than I think either of us was thinking, but I still think it turned out great!

So to commemorate what I believe to be some pretty successful costume designing this year my sister and I had our pictures taken professionally on site by Medieval Memories. The photos below are posted with permission by Medieval Memories - I highly encourage anyone attending the Michigan Renaissance Festival to have their own photos taken! (ps. if you need garb - they'll even dress you up first!)

Vanity Aflame Step 6

I decided to change the bird's coloring and head slightly so that it looked more realistic. I love peacocks and have quite a few photos that I've used as reference. Still, I took some artistic license with the crown of feathers on the head as I liked the longer more flowing version I had already drawn.

Vanity Aflame Step 4

I've finally started to work a bit more toward the finished coloring on the clouds and I've now added in the rough shape of the bird itself.

Vanity Aflame Step 3

For step 3, I focused on fleshing out the background and really making it look like clouds. I also decided to change my plans for the opening in the clouds from a town to an island. After all what self respecting fire bird would prefer a city to an island paradise?

Vanity Aflame Step 2

Step 2 in the series is the beginning of the background work.

Vanity Aflame Step 1

If the title doesn't give you an indication, this piece was inspired by the quickie contest entry I showed in my last post. I've decided to help keep myself motivated by showing this work in progression. I've always enjoyed seeing the steps involved in an artwork and I'm hoping you will too.

Without further ado, step 1:


If you compare this to the concept image in the last post, you can see that I've improved the overall composition, perspective and made the bird's anatomy a bit more realistic. The details may change as I go along, but I'm happy enough with this sketch to begin working.

Phoenix/Peacock cross

I stumbled upon an art contest that called for the artist to portray what a phoenix would like like if it were crossed with a peacock. As I love both of these birds, I couldn't help but create a quick doodle. I hope to develop this into a larger scale more complex work at some point, but for the moment this was enough to satisfy my drawing urge.