Updated - Faerie Wings and Old Man's eyes - the last Wizard
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Another work in progress for the Wizard of Oz - this particular version of the Wizard has given me fits - When the scarecrow goes to see the Wizard alone he sees "a most lovely lady". with flowing green locks, a crown of jewels, and delicate wings growing from her shoulders - in the end it turns out that it was the old man wearing a mask that the scarecrow really saw - I have cut and pasted the eyes from my drawing of the Wizard himself into this drawing and given him more robust eye lashes .... I think it is working - not sure if the truncation is too disturbing or not - I truncated the Tin Man in the same way and felt that he possibly needed company in this compositional employ or to be redrawn - I could also crop in to make this less about her wings - still need to sort out the crown ..does 9 jewels count as a "crown of jewels"? The swirly bits on the crown are supposed to be soft - there are faded stars on her dress too (The swirls in many of the drawings are symbolic of the Tornado and the stars of Magic) - anyways - thanks for looking
any feedback is always much appreciated!
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@kevin-longueil so is it just a mask or does it transform him into a female as well. I only ask because of the things hanging down in the chest area
also does the mask have cut out eye holes or does it form around him so that when he moved it's mouth the mask would too?
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@gary-wilkinson Great questions Gary - there is no description of the mask other than to say " he showed the Scarecrow the dress and mask he had worn when he seemed to be the lovely lady" - with each version of the Wizard i have mostly tried to draw what each character thinks he or she sees more than what it really is in the end - i am imagining the Wizard did his best to seem womanly thus the suggestion of breasts in the full drawing - i did try to keep that bit of anatomy subtle or subdued....maybe i was not successful with that? Anyways ..thank so much for the feedback i really appreciate it! (also, i just checked out your work - love your caricatures! really nice!!)
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Very very beautiful and suggestive, especially the low viewpoint. I agree that you do not need to be too literal - art is about imagination and connection, right? It can be a mask or melt into his own face and keep a suggestion of both. A long time ago I was trying to paint the child empress of „The never-ending story“ ( the book....never the film!) by making her look young and old and good and evil at the same time...I ended up painting faces into her hair - illustration makes thoughts visible.
I think the old eyes into the pretty womanly face are very suggestive. The crown looks good to me too. Two things that you may consider changing are the position of her shoulders (they look slightly too high, as if she was shrugging) and the wings. Without reading your description, I read them as a corridor of bark in which she is standing, not as butterfly wings - maybe it is the directionality of the markings. Since you normally do not color, maybe you want to have them look more clearly as wings. It may also be the position - it looks like they are attached to her neck.
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@smceccarelli Thank you so much of the feedback Simona - I will work on the shoulders and on making the wings more transparent and less visually heavy (I was going for dragonfly type wings
- the hunched shoulders should go too - they are a nod to it being an old man in disguise but I think you are right that it just reads as being a shrug - thanks again! -
@smceccarelli I think this is working better? I feel like the wings might be more wing-like now - I split them up a bit to make my dragonfly wing idea hopefully come across better and lightened them a bit too - I softened the angle of her shoulders and removed the space between her arms and torso to fix help he pose be less shrugging ...(I realize now that the shrug was a left over from very early on when I had a wider shot of her and her elbows were on the arms of the throne) - I am always amazed at how blind I can become to my own drawings after a while - Thank you again for your feedback - it is very helpful!
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@kevin-longueil Hi, Kevin! I really think using the same eyes that you had used in the drawing of the old Wizard is a great idea because eyes have a connotation of being associated with identity, 'windows to the soul' etc. The splitting up of the wings provides a much needed negative space and breaks up the visual block the wings had been before and makes them more recognizable as dragonfly wings. I think the wings frame her very well and have leading lines back to the focal point of the face. They are certainly more winglike and delicate now that you've lightened them up as well.
I agree with Simona that it looks like she is shrugging, and that is because the shoulders are too small and close to the neck. I'd try sizing down the head our enlarging the shoulders. Since you are going for more realistic proportions, remember that shoulder width is approximately two heads long. If you were to remove the hair, it would be more obvious in the attachment of the neck to the shoulder girdle. The location of the wings also contributes to the shrugging look because they appear to insert into her neck or head, rather than attaching to the shoulder blades.
It's looking good. Can't wait to see the finish!
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Wings are definitely reading much more like wings! I still feel the position of the shoulders and the attachment point of the wings are worth more focus. As @Teju-Abiola pointed out, the shoulders may actually be too small and that compounds the „shrugging“.
At the moment it also feels like she has very heavy and low breasts. I know you do not want to draw too much attention to that, and possibly the odd proportions could make it more unsettling and add to the story.
It’s worth considering that you may not want the anatomy to feel natural at all, and a sense of disconnect between head and body may be part of the storytelling. -
@teju-abiola @smceccarelli Thank you both! a lot to think about - I'm trying to not stray too far from the proportions of the Wizard while still making a believable appealing character that is not too idealized - the Wizard in my case has a very large head, short neck, and narrow shoulders...not the most ideal proportions for a lovely lady but I think it is possible....unless it just looks wrongly drawn, which I'm hearing it does - the breasts are low for sure - I see now that the shadow I added where the arms rest against them has really accentuated them and that fact which was not my intention - i think I am happy with the wing location - they are described as "growing from her shoulders" so I tried to draw them radiating from her shoulders - I'm imagining that there are straps around her shoulders (which you can see under her top) that hold the fake wings on - I hope I don't sound defensive of the flaws in the piece - I feel like I'm talking out my thoughts with my studio mates really - I'll work more on the shoulder to head ratio and sort out the breast area - Thanks again!
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@smceccarelli @Teju-Abiola - Finally making some progress on this piece again - much to do still (hands and drapery and textures)... but i think the pose and the wings are looking better? I'm feeling much happier with it - thanks again
head still too big?
