Monday, March 28, 2011

My girlfriend in the style of Roy Lichtenstein

My assignment in my advanced illustrator class was to do a portrait of someone in the style of a famous artist of our choice. Naturally I chose a famous pulp comic artist; Roy Lichtenstein. If your first thought was "who the hell is that?", you've probably seen his work before and don't even realize it.
Here is an example of his work...

And here is an image of my girlfriend, Patrice; recreated from scratch by me in that same pulp, vibrant style...


The biggest challenge was translating a style that's almost always used to convey white woman with blonde hair, to a darker skinned woman with black hair. I tried simply changing her hair to blonde, and skin to a pink color, so as to adapt her very image to the style, but then I changed my mind. I decided that instead of changing her to fit the art, I'd change the art to fit her. Thus presenting me with the challenge of conveying shadows in the hair. Because obviously black lines to represent shadow wouldn't show up on black hair. So I opted for a bluish/gray, which reminded me a lot of old Batman comics for some reason.

While challenging for me, mainly because I am not as adept with Illustrator as I am with Photoshop, it was still fun to make, and the end result was extremely gratifying. Which means I'll definitely try this again. Maybe with a picture of me next time, or family member.

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