Stage 2 final outcome

Final outcome by myself.

Reference photo for half of Portman's face.

Reference photo for the make-up on the dark side of Portman's face.

I decided on a pencil portrait depicting both sides of Natalie Portman's character Nina. In Black Swan, she's struggling between the good and the bad inside her that's so desperately needed for her performance in the Swan Lake ballet. Odette and Odile are like the little angel and devil inside her.
I drew black downy feathers consuming one side of the image, like they're swamping her with darkness - as, in the film, her Odile side gets the better of her! I drew her swan make-up on this shadowed side of her face to portray this.
The lighter, paler side is just Nina. I chose a reference image that was head-on and a portrait so I could show all details and features of her face. I worked with increasing the contrast and brightness of my portrait to make her face and the background white, but for some reason it just didn't work so well. I prefer this light grey colour.

Agencies for portrait artists

Commission A Portrait
Commissionaportrait.com includes commission details and contact info on a vast range of portrait artists, of all different ages and styles.
The website allows you to search for a specific style, medium, subject...etc. in order to find the ideal artist.
In order to apply for representation from this agency, you need to download a contact form PDF file and send six recent portraits along with an art C.V.

Heart Agency
Heart is quite a renowned agency with quite a considerably small selection of portrait artists on board. They seem to represent other artists as well. You can submit work via post (prints) for consideration to be represented by Heart and they state on the website that they intend on replying to all submissions they receive, but will not reply to e-mail attachments.

A Stroke Of Genius
This agency states it isn't catered for beginners (presumably graduates and students) but will consider work if it's seemingly of a very high standard.
Celebrity portraits worked from reference photos are discouraged unless commissioned, which suggests the artist must have a very strong photographic memory in order to work free-hand on a celebrity portrait.

Portrait Artist
The site doesn't state how to apply or submit your own work to the agency, but all artists featured seem to hold a similar style. They all seem to work with oil paints and paint quite realistically, all looking very professional and distinguished.

Portrait artists

Gabriel Moreno

Moreno's style really interests me as it's so unique. His portraits are strong and visually beautiful, with a subtle use of colour and intricate line work. I love how he draws smaller portraits within the main portrait. I wish my thought process worked like this. When I draw portraits, I don't think to add these decorative additions to the image.

Jonothon Wood

I am not particularly keen on Wood's portrait work. I appreciate its photo realism and likeness to the subject, but they lack character. You might as well just own a photo print-out of your favourite celebrity, as these pictures don't show any striking individualism to Wood as an artist. I feel it's a style many portrait artists probably share.

Olena Shmahalo

Shmahalo's work is aesthetically stunning. It appears he uses digital software with pencil or pen, and has a strong talent in drawing people, whilst incorporating emotion in his art too. I find his work can be quite moving through the use of colour and his approach to creating a soft, feminine air.

Florian Nicolle

Nicolle's work isn't the most appealing to me, personally, but I do like the lack of control. There's a real likeness to the people he had drawn, but only aspects of them has been portrayed, with these paint daubs and splashes added on top for effect. I don't particularly like the standard brown paper background on most of his portraits. I know it gives his work a sense of identity, but to me, it just looks too urban.

Chan Yee Von

Yee Von's work is just my cup of tea! I absolutely love these illustrations above, although I wouldn't technically class them as portrait art. The soft but dull and melancholic colours are beautiful to me! I love the little characters too, with long, dark flowing hair and hankering expressions on their faces.
I have included this in a post about portrait art as I can visualise her working on portraits quite well, if she was to draw a well-known figure or celebrity, her style would fit nicely!

Stage 2

Stage 2
Editorial: Front cover for 'Little White Lies' magazine
Theme: 'Black Swan'

Stills from the movie, captured from the DVD.

Title: Black Swan, 2010
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Runtime: 108 minutes
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder...etc.
Plot: Nina (Portman) has won the role of prima ballerina lead in 'Swan Lake' and has the innocence and grace of the White Swan/Princess Odette. She gradually is overcome with insanity and obsession over trying to adopt the role of the Black Swan/Odile, however, and sees a lot of the character's traits in Lily (Kunis). Nina battles between the good and the bad inside her, both of which are needed for her role in the ballet.

Ideas: 
I am struggling to think of original ideas for this front cover. Little White Lies magazine notoriously features portraits for their front covers, so I know to work with bust or head shots. However, upon researching already existing cover ideas dotted around the Internet for the Black Swan cover, I found the same ideas are appearing again and again. The same image of Nina in her Black Swan make-up is being portrayed in different techniques and colours so I'm trying to steer away from that particular image.
I have researched photographs of Natalie Portman I could work with. I'd like to just submit a full grey-scale pencil portrait, as I know I can do them well and fairly quickly, but I think it may evoke copyright issues due to the direct portrayal from photographic reference. Also, it probably just isn't exciting enough for a front cover!
I will probably experiment with different angles of the actress' face that I could draw, and how the make-up would be seen from these angles. I'm interested in the black/white or dark/light within the character so may draw Nina shrowded in darkness on one side of her face...

Drawn by myself. Take from photographic reference.

Original photo. I do not own the copyrights. Photographer unknown.

I found this photo particularly dark and interesting. I liked the use of lighting on one side of her face. I improvised a lot on the drawing in my sketchbook as I couldn't see her hair properly, so I drew it a lot wilder than it actually is. I won't be using this as the final cover image, but it was good practice at getting familiar with Portman's facial features.

Natalie Portman's face:
These are the features, in detailed description, that I have discovered whilst drawing the actress:

• No defining lip line - can be difficult to render when using a reference image of Natalie without lipstick.
• Lip corners turning upwards
• Thin nose
• Eye sloping upwards (diagonal)
• Freckle on far side of left cheek
• Square jaw line
• Straight, fairly thick eyebrows

Stage 2: Little White Lies magazine

Title: Little White Lies
Genre: Film/cinema
Issued: Bi-monthly
Price: £10 (subject to change)
Audience: [Young] adults
Features: Interviews, reviews, recommendations, DVD info, trailer info...etc.
Website: http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/the-magazine/

Little White Lies is a magazine publication featuring an array of articles regarding film and cinema, from interviews with directors and actors to reviews of new and upcoming films. It's available for subscription, via their website, and back-issues can be ordered. It currently has almost 30, 000 fans on Facebook alone and is proving popular amongst students and young adults.

Job description for Stage 2:

D&AD Student Awards Brief 2012:
To produce a front cover for the magazine from the list of films below:
Drive
Black Swan
The Tree of Life
Super 8
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

File dimensions: 20cm H x 24.5cm W, at 400dpi.
Specifications: Has to include title and fit within the LWL template.

http://www.dandad.org/learning/projects/little-white-lies

Revision of the Vintage Directory cover

As I wasn't too keen on the composition of the previous Vintage Directory cover, I decided to rearrange the look completely.
I went for an idea of placing the illustrations as old, torn photographs on a coffee table (because it's usually a place where a directory would sit).
So I took these photos of wooden textures from around my bedroom:

I chose the middle picture for the background of my cover.

This is the finished outcome:

The illustrations underwent filters via www.picfull.com.

I chose to give them an old finish, as if they'd been living in a drawer for a long time. The polaroid instant photograph is bleached from sunlight and the top two are scratched and torn.
The modern girl is presented on a modern, ordinary glossy photograph. I simply dropped the illustration on the canvas as a new layer and applied a Render filter to give it some glare. I dropped a shadow on all four to give it a third dimension. I created the torn effect by cutting out pieces of the layer and deleting.

Idea #3: Vintage ladies on the telephone to a modern girl

I've taken onboard a literal illustration for a 'directory'. I drew four panels in which the flapper girl, 50's woman, 60's mod girl and a modern girl from today's time are sharing a phone conversation. The phones represent each era as well as their clothing.

1920's telephone. Source: www.t-minus.net

 

1950's telephone. Source: www.rubylane.com

1960's telephone. Source: www.blackboxav.co.uk

I coloured this in the style of Tove Jansson's Moomin illustrations: black, white, with two primary colours. I don't feel this looks as vintage as if I would colour it completely. It looks unfinished.

  These are the outcomes when I colour digitally on Photoshop. They took approximately five hours each to complete. The outlines are a darker shade of the colours within the boundaries. I used the same colour palette as before, as they look authentically vintage:

Final outcomes:

No text. Same background colour as previous outcome (the ladies sharing the directory), within the same palette.

No text. Colourful pop-art style.

With text (official logo).

Sepia, with official logo.

I prefer this sepia outcome as I feel it adds a vintage effect. My drawing style is obviously very contemporary and I haven't been influenced by any traditional artists. I feel maybe the modern girl in the bottom right corner doesn't suit being in sepia tone as she is from today's period. However, putting her in colour would disrupt the harmony of the images together, so I'm keeping her sepia.

I may call this my final outcome, as opposed to the colourful one.

The coloured outcome is a little more suitable as a children's illustration, simply for its cartoon style and punchy colours. I don't feel it works as well as directory front cover because the target audience is a little ambiguous.

I can see the sepia version being published, but I think a graphic designer would have trouble knowing where to compose all the text. It will look too cluttered if text is placed over some of the bold lines. I am pleased with this result, however, and prefer it to the inital idea I originally made.