Post #718053 by tigertail777 on Fri, May 23, 2014 10:33 PM

Thanks Wendy I appreciate the cheer leading. :)

First off, I got my tiki tiger mug from Carl Gravem, and he's a beauty! I am a little afraid to use him for actual drinking so he may just be a brush holder in the studio except for very special occasions. The camera was being a little persnickety so I will have to take pictures of the inside and backside later, but it all turned out beautifully! Carol even included a bamboo straw. :)

Next... remember I said the new painting would be something from Fantasia? Remember the Nutcracker Suite sequence where it showed ice fairies? Combine that with the goddess of snow and ice in Hawaiian lore, Poliahu and you have the new painting. My idea is make this a pair of paintings that go together; the next one will be the Night on Bald Mountain sequence combined with Pele.

I started the painting last night and got pretty far. This should be a fun one for all of the light reflections and refractions off the ice.

Here is the beginning penciling. As I said before I almost never do sketches beforehand and work it all out in my head.

In the nutcracker sequence there is this really beautiful bit where an ice fairy lands on an autumn leaf and proceeds to cover it with frost by dancing over it. I wanted to do something like that, but with a orchid that was floating in water when the water iced over. This is the start of the orchid.

This is starting to paint the ice fairy who in this story is goddess Poliahu. In one of the main stories about her she had a beautiful cloak of white (snow) which she gave to a man she betrothed to. I was going to include the cloak, but I can't have both the cloak and the wings, there is no way a cloak could tie around them. For now I am probably going to go with the ice wings like the Fantasia movie. I may change my mind and make it a cloak we'll see.

I really wanted to limit the color palette on this one to mainly blues, pink, and yellow to give a soft ethereal feel. This one will be in the sunshine, but probably not a bright day more soft and muted. Pele will be with moonlight in the dark of night. (unless I switch these... it may be easier to make the goddess stand out against the icicle waterfall background). The frost on the lake ice I am trying to do in tapa patterns going outwards from the orchid.

Outline the tiki...

Filling in the tiki...

And, icing over the tiki and putting in some details is about where I stopped for the night. I will be putting a lot more blue hues and ice on the tiki I don't want the brown to really stand out from the color scheme.

Surrounded by my ever present printed out pages of research.

Until next time on our Polynesia Fantasia journey, have a tiki-riffic day!

[ Edited by: tigertail777 2014-05-23 22:35 ]