Author: Angela S.

IP Development Mentorship Week 4

DISCLAIMER: I don’t mind you guys sharing my thoughts about the mentorship with others. However, if you don’t see the art or writing bits up at SongofExile.com, that means I’d prefer you keep it between us!  Enjoy!:)

IP Development Mentorship Week 4 Wrap Up

My mentorship went on a brief hiatus for a week where I caught up on a ton of sleep, played Witcher 3, and took a much needed load off.  The 4th week resumed this past week and we were right back to the revision game!  I finished up my book 1 synopsis and defined the skeleton of my book trailer/pitch.

I ended up tapping my writer friend so hard for edits that I hired her professionally for all of the late nights of brainstorming and revisions we had been doing together.  This was the best move I made to really bring the polish to my story that I needed.  The mentorship teachers only have so much time in and outside of class to critique our art AND writing.  Once my mentorship ends, I hope to continue the working relationship with my new content editor into the future and I’m so excited to see how my story will improve because of it!

The Importance of Revision

It seems all I’ve been saying this entire time has been REVISION, REVISION, REVISION!  But it really is so important to the narrative process, not only for writing, but for art as well.  There are times I’ve stared too long at the same painting or too long at my synopsis during this mentorship that I just couldn’t see what was wrong anymore.  Getting a second set of eyes on my work has improved my work so much faster in a shorter time than banging my head against the wall trying to solve the problems myself.  I really can’t recommend a good critique group for art and a good content editor for writing enough!

Grand Total of Revisions Thus Far

Synopsis – 8 revision
Pitch – 2 revisions (with more to come)

MOAR Pitching! 

When it comes to pitching, I’ve had another chance this past week to pitch my story to a story director over at Riot Games.  Talk about nerve-wracking!  I got some great feedback, however, and I get to update my pitch now with even more pointed feedback that I wouldn’t have gotten if I had continued pitching to people who already know my story really well.  It’s more proof that getting an outside opinion is so very important when you’re working on a narrative product!

This Week’s Art

I’m still working on trying to get the thumbnails for my illustrations sorted out.  They keep changing as my pitch evolves and I take some away and add others. I’m excited to be working with a set of images for a single narrative!  It’s not something I get to do often.

Read about the rest of my journey with the IP Development Mentorship here:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Final Week
Final Critique

MINI TUTORIAL: Art Nouveau Hair

I did a panel on how to draw Art Nouveau style hair at JordanCon this past and thought I’d share the info and results of what I drew there live!  

DISCLAIMER:  This is by no means the definitive guide of Art Nouveau hair, but my own interpretation!

Inspiration Sources

If you want some gorgeous hair to get your creative juices flowing, check out the art of Alphonse Mucha and any number of the artists I’ve mentioned in the Unknown Nouveau article series.  I also have several favorite study sources up at my Art Nouveau resource page.

Before You Begin…

Think about your concept.  Art Nouveau isn’t all pretty ladies and flowy lines. Much of it has deep symbolic roots.  What visual elements or symbols could you tie into your piece?

Art Nouveau at its visual core is about flowing lines, graceful curves, and aesthetic design, in addition to the spiritual and symbolic roots of the movement.

Source: I used an image from this evocative set of stock art by ArtReferenceSource  as a base for the figure in this tutorial.  Check out the rest of his gallery for even more amazing poses for use by artists!

The Bad Example

I made this bad example by randomly drawing lines (and even then, it was really hard to make that beautiful base pose look bad!).  I consider this an ineffective use of the Art Nouveau style because it is directionless, does not serve the compositional flow, and generally just looks a mess! 

A Good Example

Now this is better!  You don’t necessarily have to have the hair of a figure flowing out everywhere in your composition.  This approach shows that you could have a more subtle stylized and graphic take on the hair where it has become more of a decorative shape than a realistic object.  

Perhaps she is a river goddess and her hair has become the flowing waters?  Perhaps she is a volcano goddess and her hair has become lava flowing down the mountain?  Weaving the hair into your background elements is one way you could bring in interesting visual elements and symbols!

Another Good Example

Here we have a more traditional take on Art Nouveau hair where the lines of the hair all curve back into the face, the heart of the piece, in this case.  Nearly every line in the image is smooth, curving, and gentle.

I’ve also abstracted the ends of the hair into curly decorative strands, which is another very specific quirk of the Art Nouveau style that you’ll see Mucha and his students use a lot.  These curly ends add a decorative touch to the hair that’s a bit more interesting than just ending the hair.

I’m sure I could write more about this topic, but I’m ending this tutorial here before it becomes a book!  I hope it gives you some basic ideas of what to do with your Art Nouveau style hair.

Do you have any favorite examples of Art Nouveau style hair? Share in the comments area, as I’d love to see them! 

Unknown Nouveau: Jane Atché

Featuring another unsung artist of the Art Nouveau movement, French artist Jane Atché .  I couldn’t find much about Atché, other than that she was a pupil of Mucha, Jean-Paul Laurens and other artists while studying at the Julian Academy of art in Paris.

The influence of Mucha definitely shines through with her decorative and compositional flare.  Atché brings her own sense of fashion and elegance to her figures.  I only wish I could find a broader collection of her work!

See more artists in this article series here .

Unknown Nouveau: Amelia Bauerle

This week’s unsung artist of the Art Nouveau movement is Amelia Bauerle.  Originally from London, Amelia worked as an illustrator and artist.  Like many artists of the movement, she also submitted works to the The Yellow Book magazine, a collection of works of poetry, art, and other creative work of the era.

Bauerle’s work shows such delicacy of emotion and handling of line that makes her work shine, even if the majority of her work was created in black and white.

Her mermaids are a fortuitous inspiration for Mermay this month as well!

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Read more of my Unknown Unknown series here .