Artist's commentary
Elita One Commission (Matt Frank)
Lineart by KaijuSamurai
I love asking Matt to draw things for me. We always have fun. I didn't have any good ideas, though. Finally I asked him to draw me Elita in the style of those awesome old B&W Hollywood portraits, back when women were women, dangit, and there was no such thing as duckface.
He put a LOT of blood, sweat, and tears into this.
About a year later, I'm finally getting around to coloring it. *shame.*
I really like how the blue light works with her eyes.
Getting decent (i.e. NOT ORANGEY) pinks is hard for the Prismacolor guys n' gals to do, I guess, because they ain't made many of 'em. But here's my attempt to mix up some non-orange pinks.
Whew..... Even when Matt first handed this over to me, I did a big sigh because I knew coloring it Old Hollywood awesome would be hard. Not his fault; it's just a tricky thing to get right. I don't think I've really achieved it -- there's a fine art to shadow-placement and contrast that I just didn't completely absorb from the portraiture class I took from the slightly-creepy guy in college. Alas. Maybe if I start to understand it, I'll try coloring this thing again.
As always, thanks Matt, for being a gloriously glee human being.
Markers on white cardstock.

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