Wicked

These are a few Wicked pieces I've been working on that I'd forgotten to update with here, and will bring my blog up to date with my current work. I like to have it all over here as I can better record my thought processes than in a simple Instagram caption.



This is fairly straight forward, a scene from the musical after 'For Good'. I don't really consider it a spoiler as it happens in The Wizard of Oz too! I just think it's incredibly sad that, as far as Glinda is aware her best friend and only true ally is dead and she has to hide and pretend she isn't there whilst it happens. Glinda's story arc is so heartbreaking, and it's sad how she's so often dismissed as just being a ditz. Elphaba and Fiyero may be fugitives, but at least they get to go on and live their own lives together. Whereas Glinda's left thinking everyone she's ever loved is dead, and has to watch everyone celebrating that fact whilst keeping the lie alive.



This was drawn from a production still. I kind of set the wrong mood for it with them smiling, as they're literally plastering on smiles over their own heartbreaks BUT I drew this whilst watching Eurovision so I think you can understand why I was distracted from the tone. Also quite frankly I drew it as I wanted something cute and pretty of my favourite characters and wasn't trying to draw anything deep. It was my first go at colouring them with my Copic markers too, so that was fun trying to translate my digital palette.

The Snow Queen

This is a bit of a throw back, but I realised when scrolling through my Instagram feed that there's a few pieces I forgot to share over here, so the next few posts will be of older pieces to get caught up.



For this post I just wanted to share this illustration from back in winter. I have a long personal history with the original story of The Snow Queen, certainly long before Frozen stole my heart. It's always been my favourite fairy tale for no deep reason other than it's a good adventure tale, and I've collected various book editions and film adaptations of it throughout the years. In my foundation degree, to finish the course we had to write our own brief and mine was to illustrate a full 32 page book of The Snow Queen. Which ended up taking me on quite an adventure, as it even involved traveling around the country to see some real life reindeer to study as well as translating and condensing Andersen's original text whilst still keeping the integrity of the original story (as it was a picture book so had to be simplified)

I still have that book somewhere, and I have a lot of mixed feelings looking at it. I put so much work into it, but obviously my style and ability has drastically improved so it's a little embarrassing in some respects. This piece was drawn straight into my iPad (I usually draw the initial sketch traditionally) and was just revisiting the character of The Snow Queen herself. I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it other than trying to improve upon my original idea, whilst also trying NOT to subconsciously make it resemble Elsa.

I'd love to finalise some designs some day, perhaps with Gerda and Kai too. Maybe I'll even redo my whole book!

Blue diamonds

Just a paint doodle that both provided practice with some different Procreate techniques, as well as exploring Fiyero's tattoo designs.

In the original novel Fiyero's marked with distinctive tattoos/body paint (it's described as both interchangeably so could be either), but other than being "a pattern of diamonds" and "sulfurous" blue and being on his face, chest and hands, there isn't much description as to what it actually looks like.

These are supposed to be tattoos that mark him to his specific tribe in the Vinkus, rather than tattooing for aesthetic purposes, and are really important to his character as it 'other's him and is one of the things he gets made fun of for. I did some research into body art in various indigenous cultures, including Native American (which I've always imagined to be Fiyero's ethnicity) and First Nations, Polynesian, Māori, and Inuit which was a little help. I couldn't find anything geometric enough to take direct inspiration from, but it certainly helped me consider placement (such as avoiding the chin which in various cultures around the world seems to be a feminine practice). Sometimes it's just really interesting the avenues art can take you down. This isn't finalised or anything, I'm just playing around and seeing what works. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be as it's so easy to make it look crap, I can see now why the musical scrapped it!

Although most of my Wicked art is based in the world of the musical, I really want to explore scenes from the book more, especially as it was what made me really fall in love with these characters more so than the musical. I want to eventually come to place where the two are kind of blended together seamlessly, which is why I still drew Fiyero in his outfit from the musical.