the beauty and the beast thesis show!

so my thesis show opened saturday night! i'm really happy without how my thesis turned out, and it was great to see how so much my friends have improved over the last few years. i've been a little negligent in the past month from working hard on these pieces, but now here they are! enjoy!

places and spaces

here's more images, as promised! environments this time! excuse the colors if they look super saturated. uploading them onto here seems to have changed them more than i've ever seen. D:

 also, here's a w.i.p. of the scene i'm currently working on, the death of the beast. i wish i had more time for this thesis so that i could do more fun storytelling images like this. it's been the most fun to think about so far.

 and last, but not least, here's what happens when i goof off by watching Face Off while working. the one guy's phoenix girl wasn't pretty enough for me, so i made my own!

well! back to work!

ophelia

this isn't thesis related, but i happened to get a fun assignment in one of my liberal arts classes where i was given free reign with a number of stories. i went with illustrating Ophelia from Hamlet as it has always been my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, and also i've always wanted to do my own version her since she's kind of classic.

unlike Millais's version (which is, of course, gorgeous) i decided to make her a bit more ghostly and um....corpsey. also, i miss figure painting. can ya tell?

also, i'm proud to announce that i've updated my portfolio site with a whole bunch of vis dev, illustration, and figure work! check is out here: Portfolio

a timeless pair

a couple more images, here's those portraits i had been working on:

the beauty

the beast

i'm just about done with an image of the prince's castle, also. i don't have it on this particular computer, so it will have to wait. also, library!! since i was taking so much influence from Russian Czar outfits for dear beasty, i decided to stay with a partially Russian influence on the castle architecture, too.... alright, alright, i admit it! i just fell in love with those onion domes and had to have them on my own castle!

process!

thought i would update with some old sketches that took me to where my current Beauty and Beast designs stand. so here's a bunch of doodles that reveal just how sketchy my ideas begin:

for Beast, it took me a while to decide on the Darcy-type gentleman that i have now. i tried a lot of different animal types, thinking at first that the Beast would be a huge hulking figure in comparison to Beauty. in the end, i kept him tall and relatively slender with a large chest. his final form is a combination of primarily a wolf, a deer, and a lion.

Beauty came much more easily, as pretty girls always do. she's a little different than most versions of her. most versions, of course, cast her in this very naive and virginal light, but i'd like mine to be slightly more aware of the world. less princess, more spunk. she is, after all, living as a peasant. in particular, i fell in love with the idea of her being freckled from working outside. in general, the world needs more freckly heroines, i think. in costumes for her, i'm pulling a lot of inspiration from the Jean Cocteau version where Beauty has the most amazing sleeves ever seen on the silver screen as well as some of Erte's work, which i have always been in love with.

the beauty

more progress on beauty. her costume will be quite different...

note to self: make eyes not bruised looking...

hello new blog!

THIS shall be the site of my senior thesis work. hello and welcome. as i navigate the waters of thesis, i invite you to join me either as a passing viewer or a constructive contributor. my story of focus this semester is the classic La Belle et la Bête, or Beauty and the Beast, retold through my drawings. the goal: to build the world and characters of the story.

let's begin.

at the current stage, i have a lot of sketches. a lot.

a sketch of the heroine of the story, the Beauty, or at least how i'm leaning toward constructing her.

the Beast, on the other hand, is a bit further underway. still working on his outfit, though i'm happy more or less with his facial construction. one question remains, however: fang or no fang? should his teeth remain handsomely inside his mouth or is the hint of a flesh-eating monster better? (not that my monster is flesh-eating, or at least not human flesh-eating, but people seem to have mixed reactions to the gentlemanly beast.)

hopefully, i can get a few of these beast sketches scanned and up to share with you or posterity or whatever!

~kelsey