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cimoreneThis is a post about the planning of the fantasy portraits I painted of the triplets for Christmas for my mom and anyone else who might be interested (she's the only sure bet, as it were.)
These are the pictures (embiggenable via clickthrough):
Tripletych, Christmas 2012, acrylic on canvas board
each approx 10x12" (?)
On Tumblr
When I decided that I wanted to make the triplets' fantasy portraits as a triptych of them on an adventure quest, it was their dad's suggestion that C would be a half-elven Ranger and Lo a "berserker", because he has a sweet personality with a quick temper and is super-fierce in defense of his siblings, which has resulted in some scuffles in daycare for whacking people who were mean to Le or Little C. Le was harder because in reality his personality is more tinkerer, inventor, or engineer, and I couldn't quite get an outfit designed. Plus I wanted all of them to be capable of fighting. You wouldn't want a totally untutored party member in D&D, after all. But then fortuitously he got a Ninjago Lego set for his last birthday and became quite taken with ninjas.
Little C's outfit is obviously based heavily on Legolas's from the Lord of the Rings. I made some other sketches and I did research on other elven ranger costumes, but Legolas's was both the best and the most typical style. In fact, I suspect most of the elven ranger D&D costumes in the first page of Google image results were based on his outfit already, except for the female ones that were based on bikinis. The embellishments on hers are bolder and more heart- and leaf-like, however.
Le's is a combination of Assassin's Creed (a popular video game series which I mostly discovered via google-imaging 'assassin' and being like 'what are all these white outfits in the results?') and the outfits worn by the Chinese fighting monks of the Shaolin temple. I went back and forth on his the most because of wanting it to fit in with the other outfits while still being appropriately ninja-like. I also felt that many of the Assassin's Creed costumes had elements that would make stealth nearly impossible, and they mostly look like they're designed for sword or bowfighting, not martial arts. On the other hand, I didn't want the stereotypical ninja outfit and I didn't want it to be all black (not very good for daytime camo in a green landscape, and also hard to paint). The Shaolin temple monks seem to work in either medium gray or orange, so I went with the gray and borrowed their forearm and calf wrappings. (I did design the whole costume, even though I later decided on half-length portraits.) On the other hand, I had to borrow the Assassin's Creed cowl and I quite liked the sleeveless tunic with laced-on shoulder guards from the Renaissance version. Then I gave him TWO swords because I wanted to.
Lo's outfit is mostly based on the god Loki's from the Valhall comic books. "Viking" is quite a broad field for costume design, but I liked the bright colors and simplicity of Valhall as a starting point. I did closely examine the outfits from King Arthur (2004) because I liked the pseudo-early-medieval-Ren Faire vibe and all the different sorts of leather; and then I looked at all the outfits of the dwarves in The Hobbit, because they have tons of furs and they fight with axes sometimes, but ultimately they are too finely worked (they tend to have sleeves and decorative trims and the like). Ultimately I topped Valhall Loki's outfit with Mads Mikkelsen's metal-ring-and-leather tunic from King Arthur and Jon Snow's fur stole from Game of Thrones, but I let him have a dwarven axe based on Gimli's.
I also wanted to introduce anachronistic elements, like in their older sister's matching portrait, to make it more playful. Thus C's Hello Kitty brooch, Le's Lego and happy face insignia, and Lo's Batman pin and spiked metalhead belt with the enameled rainbow clasp. (If their feet had been included, I would have given them modern sneakers.) The heraldic insignia (silver castle on black, golden lion on blue, and yellow serpent on green) reference the toy shields they got on a visit to Turku Castle.
When she saw the portraits their big sister commented "These are really cool. I think they're much nicer than mine." Wax told her it was because I got better at painting in the meanwhile and I admitted I agreed with her and engaged to make her a better one later. XD
These are the pictures (embiggenable via clickthrough):
Tripletych, Christmas 2012, acrylic on canvas board
each approx 10x12" (?)
On Tumblr
When I decided that I wanted to make the triplets' fantasy portraits as a triptych of them on an adventure quest, it was their dad's suggestion that C would be a half-elven Ranger and Lo a "berserker", because he has a sweet personality with a quick temper and is super-fierce in defense of his siblings, which has resulted in some scuffles in daycare for whacking people who were mean to Le or Little C. Le was harder because in reality his personality is more tinkerer, inventor, or engineer, and I couldn't quite get an outfit designed. Plus I wanted all of them to be capable of fighting. You wouldn't want a totally untutored party member in D&D, after all. But then fortuitously he got a Ninjago Lego set for his last birthday and became quite taken with ninjas.
Little C's outfit is obviously based heavily on Legolas's from the Lord of the Rings. I made some other sketches and I did research on other elven ranger costumes, but Legolas's was both the best and the most typical style. In fact, I suspect most of the elven ranger D&D costumes in the first page of Google image results were based on his outfit already, except for the female ones that were based on bikinis. The embellishments on hers are bolder and more heart- and leaf-like, however.
Le's is a combination of Assassin's Creed (a popular video game series which I mostly discovered via google-imaging 'assassin' and being like 'what are all these white outfits in the results?') and the outfits worn by the Chinese fighting monks of the Shaolin temple. I went back and forth on his the most because of wanting it to fit in with the other outfits while still being appropriately ninja-like. I also felt that many of the Assassin's Creed costumes had elements that would make stealth nearly impossible, and they mostly look like they're designed for sword or bowfighting, not martial arts. On the other hand, I didn't want the stereotypical ninja outfit and I didn't want it to be all black (not very good for daytime camo in a green landscape, and also hard to paint). The Shaolin temple monks seem to work in either medium gray or orange, so I went with the gray and borrowed their forearm and calf wrappings. (I did design the whole costume, even though I later decided on half-length portraits.) On the other hand, I had to borrow the Assassin's Creed cowl and I quite liked the sleeveless tunic with laced-on shoulder guards from the Renaissance version. Then I gave him TWO swords because I wanted to.
Lo's outfit is mostly based on the god Loki's from the Valhall comic books. "Viking" is quite a broad field for costume design, but I liked the bright colors and simplicity of Valhall as a starting point. I did closely examine the outfits from King Arthur (2004) because I liked the pseudo-early-medieval-Ren Faire vibe and all the different sorts of leather; and then I looked at all the outfits of the dwarves in The Hobbit, because they have tons of furs and they fight with axes sometimes, but ultimately they are too finely worked (they tend to have sleeves and decorative trims and the like). Ultimately I topped Valhall Loki's outfit with Mads Mikkelsen's metal-ring-and-leather tunic from King Arthur and Jon Snow's fur stole from Game of Thrones, but I let him have a dwarven axe based on Gimli's.
I also wanted to introduce anachronistic elements, like in their older sister's matching portrait, to make it more playful. Thus C's Hello Kitty brooch, Le's Lego and happy face insignia, and Lo's Batman pin and spiked metalhead belt with the enameled rainbow clasp. (If their feet had been included, I would have given them modern sneakers.) The heraldic insignia (silver castle on black, golden lion on blue, and yellow serpent on green) reference the toy shields they got on a visit to Turku Castle.
When she saw the portraits their big sister commented "These are really cool. I think they're much nicer than mine." Wax told her it was because I got better at painting in the meanwhile and I admitted I agreed with her and engaged to make her a better one later. XD
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Date: 25 Dec 2012 09:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 26 Dec 2012 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 26 Dec 2012 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 26 Dec 2012 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2013 11:20 pm (UTC)*the