Well, following our conversation on Tuesday, it looks as if you're much more clear in terms of the sort of city you want to envision in line with Erte's haughty, glamorous ladies and Deco stylings. However, your method for visualising your elements isn't quite delivering what you need. Your latest thumbnails are too irregular and organic to truly capture the Deco-attentuation of your city, and you were getting better results when you were working in silhouette and thinking about symmetry. Some of these previous silhouettes were arguably too complex and 'squat', so what I suggest is that you return to working in silhouettes and symmetry, but you think about keeping things tall and elegant and a more simplified. It's going to help you a lot if you also look at actual Deco architecture and deco product design - because I suspect you're not really as familiar as you should be with the rules of the style within which Erte drawings are situated: so, before you do anything else, do your Deco homework:
Also - the reason why Erte women are so tall and elegant is because, in common with lots of fashion illustrators, the length of leg of his women are exaggerated:
OGR 05/11/2015
ReplyDeleteHey Sam,
Well, following our conversation on Tuesday, it looks as if you're much more clear in terms of the sort of city you want to envision in line with Erte's haughty, glamorous ladies and Deco stylings. However, your method for visualising your elements isn't quite delivering what you need. Your latest thumbnails are too irregular and organic to truly capture the Deco-attentuation of your city, and you were getting better results when you were working in silhouette and thinking about symmetry. Some of these previous silhouettes were arguably too complex and 'squat', so what I suggest is that you return to working in silhouettes and symmetry, but you think about keeping things tall and elegant and a more simplified. It's going to help you a lot if you also look at actual Deco architecture and deco product design - because I suspect you're not really as familiar as you should be with the rules of the style within which Erte drawings are situated: so, before you do anything else, do your Deco homework:
http://www.jamesmaherphotography.com/images/0000/0927/chrysler_building_1930.jpeg
http://www.ikeadecora.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/art-deco-architectural-details.jpg
http://www.theblissery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2004191956.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/98/5f/37/985f377f17150efc0dd63d385679740b.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e1/ae/f7/e1aef7fbd4758a73a4d30feec1d6ed40.jpg
Also - the reason why Erte women are so tall and elegant is because, in common with lots of fashion illustrators, the length of leg of his women are exaggerated:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a6/6f/b9/a66fb93af65bd5d85694486654f504ed.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6f/31/70/6f317037b8fd73ba2c9184d7d0df8dd9.jpg
You might want to think of your buildings as being similarly 'disproportionate'...