Eleanor of Aquitaine

Watch on DA | S6

5th and antepenultimate piece of this series!

For this one I didn't know who to draw, that's why I made a poll on my DA asking the people if they wanted me to draw Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary I of England or Anne Boleyn. Eleanor was the winner, so here she is!

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) was one of the wealthiest and powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. She became Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right when she was still a child, then later Queen Consort of France (1137-1152) and of England (1154-1189). She was the mother of Richard the Lionheart.

This piece gave me a huge headache, since I had problems with the pose and the armor. In her times, warriors used a chain mail and some kind of tunic over it and, since I'm lazy, I decided to draw only the tunic over the dress. 

I also had problems picking her hair colour, since in some paintings it seemed to be red, in others it seemed blonde and even light brown. I finally painted it red because I liked it more.

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Cleopatra

Watch on DA | S6

Man! It's been ages since I said I would update this blog more often!

Anyway, here's the 4th piece of my Women of History series. This time I decided to draw Cleopatra, the agyptian queen.

Cleopatra (69BC-30BC) was the last active pharaoh of the Ancient Egypt. She ruled with her father and brothers until she became sole ruler. She consumated a liaison wiyh Julius Caesar and after his assassination she aligned to Mark Anthony in opposition of Caesar's legal heir. She commited suicide after Mark Anthony's suicide by means of an asp bite.

Searching for references about Cleopatra was a little pain, since the only things I found were captures from movies in which she was depicted and some subsequent paintings and sculptures. Even if I wasn't really pleased with them, I ended up relying on them and on some advices of my friend Laura. She gave me some ideas such as adding the roman breastplate and the crown of the two egypts, but I didcarded this last one since I nedded to hide her hair, and I liked this bird thing even more.

The frame was fun to make, in fact, I ended up finishing it at 4 a.m since I didn't noticed the time while working on it. This time, I made all the details of the frame by myself.

Remember that you can purchase some items with this piece at my S6 store (link above).

Oh! and you can now follow my works on Facebook too! :3

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Isabella I of Castile

Watch on DA | S6

I totally forgot that I had to write this entry! I hope I haven't forgotten anything about the process xDDD...

This time is the turn of Isabella I of Castile (Isabel I de Castilla) was the Queen of Castile and Leon and Queen consort of Aragón, Majorca, Naples and Valencia. She was married to Ferdinand II of Aragon, and they were known as the Catholic Monarchs. Both of them reconquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom, and supported and financed Christopher Columbus' voyage.

I had several troubles looking for pictures about her, since in ones you could see her hair blonde and in others it was brown, plus there is also a TV show about her life, and the actress (Michelle Jenner) has a very light broen hair colour. In the end I decided to pick a very light brown, almost blonde, and then I added some shades using red tones.

I also couldn't decide the colour of her clothes, since none seemed good to me. I ended up choosing this one by popular demand xD. Here you can see the others:

 

 

For the frame I used this artwork by Alphonse Mucha as a reference, since I liked it and I thought it would fit it quite well. As for some of the details, I used this shape pack by CherubiumAngles, since my Photoshop started to act weird xD.

Jeanne D'Arc

Watch on DA | S6

Here's the second piece of my historic women series.

This time, I've drawn Jeanne D'Arc or Joan of Arc (1410-1431), who received visions of various saints and angels telling her to support her king Charles VII and recovering France from English domination. She was captured in 1430 by the english and condemned to die burned at the stake.

Since she is considered both as a Saint and a Virgin, I didn't wanted to draw her in a sexy style (even though I'm not very keen on religions). Instead, I decided to draw her with a melancholic face, holding her coat of arms in a spear. Since the background is more simplistic than Marie Antoinette's, I decided to give it some details by adding a fleur de lis pattern to her dress.

while I was searching for references for her armor, I realised that se really had dark hair, which contradicts what we are used to see on TV series, cinema and cartoons where they depict her as a blonde, so I decided to stay loyal to her real self. For the armor I used several references from portraits and statues and then added some extra golden details.

Before finishing, I want to let you know that I've openen an store on Socity6, so from now on you will be able to purchase some of my works as prints, bags, iPhone cases and a wide amount of items more! I've already added the link to the right column, and thete is also a little widget on the left one, but  I'll leave the link to it here anyway ^^.

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