Queen Michelle of Kingdom of Style

I love fashion, so naturally I read a lot of fashion blogs. I have always been thinking about drawing portraits of my favorite bloggers. Lately I have seen many other illustrators had the same idea, and produced some amazing artwork, so I'll just join the club.

Kingdom of Style was one of the first independent fashion blogs I came across and I have been reading it ever since. They have such an inspiring creativity and I'm always exited to see a new post in my feed reader, because it will always be surprising and interesting, be it a designer review, a new item they've purchased, a DIY project or a tidbit about their personal live.
And I love love love Queen Michelle's Outfit posts, so here she is:






Original is here

Some sketches and something on sketching

One thing I often hear from artists is that you should be drawing all the time. I think this is a great and true advice, but I also think there lies a danger in it. Some - especially young - artist tend to take this as a gospel truth, and believe if the just wont put the pencil out of their hand, they are already doing everything right. Actually they are doing almost everything right. Drawing constantly will definitely give you great control over your tools, which is crucial for anything you do. But if you draw mindlessly there is the danger of ingraining mistakes or just drawing variations of the same thing over and over without really improving. Of course it would be ideal, if every time you want to start sketching you would actually be really inspired by something cool, or at least you find something challenging.
I have no general recipe for that but one thing that works for me is sketching from street style blogs. They are full of photos of so many different and interesting people, which really inspires me. To keep myself challenged I try to pick the photos where I think: "This looks really cool, I have no idea how i would draw that" Like with the leopard scarf in that one sketch.
Do I draw all the time in my free time? It depends. I have noticed that I have phases. There are those phases where I draw almost all the time, and nothing could make me happier then. And there are those times where I just cant bring myself to it, and only play video games, I know drawing would only suck at that time, so I dont force it. I think that keeps me sane. ;)

references for the sketches above:
http://glamcanyon.blogspot.com/2009/03/sokrates-on-broadway-market.html
http://trendycrew.com/street-fashion/fairy-paris-fashion-week/

Jo Weldon aka Jo Boobs

I want to start a new series with portraits of burlesque artists. For the first one I cose Jo Weldon aka Jo Boobs. She is an amazing Burlesque performer and also teacher and Head Mistress of The New York School of Burlesque. For more info check out what she writes about herself in her blog

Some explanations: She is holding an Godzilla head because in one of her performances she actually wears a Godzilla costume, completely with a head like this. I thought that was absolutely hilarious, check it out!
The girls in the background studying her dance are supposed to hint to the School of Burlesque.
She is wearing red because she looks absolutely gorgeous in red!

With this one I tried a more simplistic approach. Actually I always wanted to get more simplistic but shied away from the lack of detail. Once you leave a lot of stuff out the shapes and colors that are actually there become really important.

sexy back

I noticed, how on some art message boards female users are always expected to be totally cool about even the most ridiculous ways sexy women are objectified portrayed, but as soon as there is a drawing of a sexy guy, certain men freak out completely, because they are afraid the might get infected with "teh gay" or something, I guess. So I kind of also did this image to annoy these guys: on the thumbnail it looks like your regular sexy girl drawing, but once you click on it a sexy merman flirts with you. *evil laugh*

Elise and her family

A little while ago I drew the first page in a very cool comic project: "I want a cat" by Yann Krehl on inkplosion.com
It is about a little girl who wanted a cat for her birthday. Every single page showed an alternative ending of what she actually gets from her parents.
Now a second part is in the making and I will do the first page again.

this is the old page I did, you can see how each of them got older (and hopefully, that my drawing skills got a little bit better):

Dita von Teese

As you can imagine I am a fan of Dita von Teese. I love her glamorous style. from what I've read her most important message seems to be, that can you define and create your own beauty regardless of what others tell you, which I think is great.
When sketching for this portrait I wondered which costume I would choose. She has so many beautiful shows, that do not only rely on her beautiful dresses and lingerie but often evolve around a certain item, like the bath tub or the circus horse and so on. So I decided to portrait this aspect instead of only showing one single costume. I put a corset in front because she says it is her favorite piece of lingerie.

Bar by Christian Dior

The famous "Bar" suit from Christian Dior's first collection "New Look" from 1947. more information
I totally love this design and how it is bold and elegant the same time.