So, I was super excited about this project and ready to show off my freshly polished Adobe Illustrator skills on this one. I did the study below to teach myself gradient meshes in preparation for this project and those that will follow as I explore an aesthetic style I am struggling to realize.
The only problem is that I completely mismanaged my time and bit off more than I could chew. I am planning on redoing the vectored final version, but I think I'm fairly satisfied with the prep-work - color choices, sketches, reference, etc.
The concept is a Mucha/Klimt inspired illustration of Titania and Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
It looked pretty good in outline, but I learned that I need to stay out of that view most of the time, since color and shape have more impact than outline... especially with such bold colors and contrasts.
For my next piece (which will be an illustration of Othello and Desdemona) I am starting with the portraits in gradient meshes first. They are the most important part of the pieces anyway, the rest is literally just fluff.
This was the "final" version that I handed in and honestly I was embarrassed to hang it up. This is not at all what I wanted though, after not looking at it for a week I hate it less.
I'm scrapping this completely and am redoing it from my sketch. (My scanner was broken before and therefore I had to draw from my reference collage.) Hopefully the next version will have more of the same charm as this one.
