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Process for Les Marchands du Désir
Ramblings and natterings on Marchands beneath the cut, for those of you interested. :)
Back at the beginning of march,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chomiji gave me, among several other possibilities, this prompt:chomiji was OK with my departure from a few minor details. XD
I was originally going to surprise her with the finished picture, and wanted to do this prompt, in marker, with a lot of detail and intricacy. I posted under filter asking for ideas for elements and colors, etc. An idea that came out of that post was, instead of doing a tea-party sort of picture, to do a kind of Seven/Eight Drunken Immortals* arrangement.
That stuck around for a while, and I doodled here and there, but nothing jelled in my head and eventually A-Kon and moving took over my available brainspace.
After settling into the new apartment, this pic came back into my head and ... somehow ... it found an old plan in the back of my brain to draw Yuuko in an Art Nouveau manner. I'd checked out an Art Nouveau book for inspiration a year or so ago, but it came to naught and I turned it back in. However, Alphonse Mucha's penchant for drawing allegories in series of four occurred to me, and that was the point it started to come together - when I gave myself permission to get rid of the background and go for something allegorical.
So I looked at a few Mucha panel series online, and eventually checked out a Mucha book and discovered his series The Jewels, which is comprised of Topaz, Emerald, Amethyst, and .... er, I think Ruby. I can't find any decent copies of these online and the book is at home right now, so I'll post a snapshot later. Each panel has a woman representing the jewel, with a flower the color of the jewel at her feet, and the colors of the panel taken from the flower and jewel.
I started doodling poses. I'm not sure at which point the title and the individual names came up, but the drawing itself refused to really go forward until I'd settled the background, so I ended up spending a lot of time looking for a good font and staring at Art Nouveau designs. During a visit to the bookstore, I decided getting a clip-art book of Art Nouveau ornaments would be a good idea and oh boy it was.
After working out the French for the titles - as it absolutely insisted on being in French and wouldn't let me go forward until that was settled - and assigning each merchant to a thing. I may actually switch Yuuko's and Mr. Yang's allegorical merchandise. "Les envies" is a bit closer to "wishes" than "wants," I think, and as Mr. Yang doesn't yet have a theme to his particular set of stories, I might as well assign him "hopes," since "wishes" works well for Yuuko. But the file's in layers, so I can do that easily. "Needs" fit D, as his customers tend to get exactly what they deserve, instead of what they want, and after certain revelations in Wild Adapter 4 and 5, "dreams" worked perfectly for Kou. :D
And then I *still* couldn't start on the actual drawing, because it wanted more design, so I had to put clip art at the foot of each portrait, and also attempt to find something reasonably symbolic. Poppies would be an appropriate symbol for Kou, but I didn't have any recognizable poppies in the clip art book that would fit in the space, so I found the closest vaguely poppy-ish flower ornament that fit and called it good. The snail was right for D, since it was an animal - there was a bee ornament I considered, but this fit better. Mr. Yang was a bit more difficult, as I didn't remember any symbols particularly associated with him. I poked about online for symbols that meant something in traditional Korean culture, and would fit Mr. Yang's character. I didn't find anything that fit him, but chose the thing that was least unlike him, which is the lotus. If I remember correctly, it means long life and I think he's an immortal or something pretty darn close to it, if I'm reading volume 4 of his series right. XD Yuuko, it's mentioned over and over online, is symbolized in the xxxHolic books by the butterfly. I had no butterfly ornaments - and the bee didn't edit well - but managed to fake one reasonably well out of a stylized flower, although I think it looks more mothlike.
After all of that was finished, I was able to do the pencils on the characters. My idea of replicating the poses in The Jewels was quickly thrown out when I couldn't make anyone but Yuuko adopt them. XD So I went for taking faint elements from them, and ended up having all four characters' hands up near their faces, and them facing in similar directions, with Yuuko and Mr. Yang pushing the composition to the right, and D and Kou pushing it to the left. I gave Mr. Yang the knot-thing to give his hand something to do, and because he had one vaguely similar to that in one of the scans I had.
The "pencils" in Photoshop went fairly well. This was the point I gave up on surprisingchomiji and started sending her in-process versions, because I discovered that when it comes to a project this complex, I really need feedback along the way. XD Good to know!
I started doing them more realistic, like Mucha's women (that was the point where I posted to LJ whinging that I was going to get complaints on DA for making them fat - I was thinking of Yuuko, who's pretty much a stick except for her chest in CLAMP's style), but ended up taking the faces back a bit closer to anime, to make them more recognizable, but keeping them all in the same style. Their hands are still all rounded and pudgy, though. :D
D was originally conceived as having a bird perched on his hand, but when I was confronted with the fact that everyone else had flowing hair, and he also had very straight-lined clothing, I changed the bird to an anaconda, to get the swirls in behind him. His sari/wrap/thing comes from ONE PANEL - the last panel in the last page of the omake story in Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo 2, which was the only Petshop book I had unpacked. :D That was to give him a bit more softness in front.
Kou drove me nuts with his pose, until I realized my original pose was just too much like the pose in the color pagemeganbmoore scanned for me (oops - mscongeniality was responsible for those. Megan got me Mr Yang). So that was out. Casting my mind about for appropriate symbols/objects, I remembered his shop, and decided that one of those scales traditional Chinese pharmacists use to measure ingredients would be perfect, after which it fell into place.
After that, the major decision left was the colors. I spent a lot of time in Painter coming up with a background that was sort-of marbled, but not so patterned that it would distract.
I'd intended to do the The Jewels thing and do each in a separate tone, but without me even noticing it, they decided they wanted to have elements of all the colors in them, so now each one is a major color with elements of the others - Yuuko green, Mr. Yang red, D purple, and Kou orange. Of course, Kou was the most difficult, since he wears WHITE with black trim in canon, and I couldn't have this GIANT WHITE BLOB over on the right unbalancing the composition. His hair toned that down some, andchomiji suggested a faint pattern, to make it look like white tone-on-tone brocade, and that worked perfectly. :D (And thus forced me to spend lots of time getting patterns into everyone else, since they immediately all wanted them.) I also put light/white elements into everyone, to keep it from being unbalanced.
Then last weekend I spent Saturday driving myself nuts trying to figure out shading. Nothing worked. I got another book on Art Nouveau out of the library, which had some GORGEOUS reproductions of lithographs, good enough I could see the shading on The Jewels was made of dots, giving it a wonderful texture. Unfortunately, all my attempts in that direction made them look diseased, and no other shading worked.
I eventually figured out that no shading worked because they didn't want to be shaded. And when I gave up on that and started the next step, tinting the interior lines, it went OH HELL YES and I knew it was the right decision. If only it hadn't taken me eight hours of frustration to work that out!
After that, it was all downhill and doing little annoying steps: fitting patterns into the clothing** and editing them to follow the lines and folds, cleaning up the lines as much as I could, coloring in the background where I'd missed the stray pixel here and there, fixing mistakes.
And then it was just to send it off tochomiji and post it here! :D Despite the many times along the way I wanted to stab someone, anyone, it turned out well and I don't hate it! XD
* The number of inebriated immortals varies in various pictures. Apparently sometimes some of them don't show up to the party.
** Kou's pattern was as hemp-like as I could find in the clip art book. It seemed appropriate.
Back at the beginning of march,
chomiji gave me, among several other possibilities, this prompt:Inspired by my latest reading: the crazy mystical manga shopkeepers having a spot of tea and a chat ... Yuuko, of course, has a flask of something a bit stronger than tea, Count D is monopolizing a well-laden cake stand with petit fours and tarts etc., Kou is all curled up nursing his teacup close to his chest and his hair falling fetchingly over one shoulder .... (and God, the sweets/caffeine connection is tempting me to ask for L to make a guest appearance as well ... And if you include Mr. Yang, you'll have to decide what he's doing, as my copies won't arrive for a bit yet). Perhaps Watanuki can be lurking in the background with a fresh platter of goodies ... .You can, of course, see how well I managed to follow that. :D Luckily,
chomiji was OK with my departure from a few minor details. XDI was originally going to surprise her with the finished picture, and wanted to do this prompt, in marker, with a lot of detail and intricacy. I posted under filter asking for ideas for elements and colors, etc. An idea that came out of that post was, instead of doing a tea-party sort of picture, to do a kind of Seven/Eight Drunken Immortals* arrangement.
That stuck around for a while, and I doodled here and there, but nothing jelled in my head and eventually A-Kon and moving took over my available brainspace.
After settling into the new apartment, this pic came back into my head and ... somehow ... it found an old plan in the back of my brain to draw Yuuko in an Art Nouveau manner. I'd checked out an Art Nouveau book for inspiration a year or so ago, but it came to naught and I turned it back in. However, Alphonse Mucha's penchant for drawing allegories in series of four occurred to me, and that was the point it started to come together - when I gave myself permission to get rid of the background and go for something allegorical.
So I looked at a few Mucha panel series online, and eventually checked out a Mucha book and discovered his series The Jewels, which is comprised of Topaz, Emerald, Amethyst, and .... er, I think Ruby. I can't find any decent copies of these online and the book is at home right now, so I'll post a snapshot later. Each panel has a woman representing the jewel, with a flower the color of the jewel at her feet, and the colors of the panel taken from the flower and jewel.
I started doodling poses. I'm not sure at which point the title and the individual names came up, but the drawing itself refused to really go forward until I'd settled the background, so I ended up spending a lot of time looking for a good font and staring at Art Nouveau designs. During a visit to the bookstore, I decided getting a clip-art book of Art Nouveau ornaments would be a good idea and oh boy it was.
After working out the French for the titles - as it absolutely insisted on being in French and wouldn't let me go forward until that was settled - and assigning each merchant to a thing. I may actually switch Yuuko's and Mr. Yang's allegorical merchandise. "Les envies" is a bit closer to "wishes" than "wants," I think, and as Mr. Yang doesn't yet have a theme to his particular set of stories, I might as well assign him "hopes," since "wishes" works well for Yuuko. But the file's in layers, so I can do that easily. "Needs" fit D, as his customers tend to get exactly what they deserve, instead of what they want, and after certain revelations in Wild Adapter 4 and 5, "dreams" worked perfectly for Kou. :D
And then I *still* couldn't start on the actual drawing, because it wanted more design, so I had to put clip art at the foot of each portrait, and also attempt to find something reasonably symbolic. Poppies would be an appropriate symbol for Kou, but I didn't have any recognizable poppies in the clip art book that would fit in the space, so I found the closest vaguely poppy-ish flower ornament that fit and called it good. The snail was right for D, since it was an animal - there was a bee ornament I considered, but this fit better. Mr. Yang was a bit more difficult, as I didn't remember any symbols particularly associated with him. I poked about online for symbols that meant something in traditional Korean culture, and would fit Mr. Yang's character. I didn't find anything that fit him, but chose the thing that was least unlike him, which is the lotus. If I remember correctly, it means long life and I think he's an immortal or something pretty darn close to it, if I'm reading volume 4 of his series right. XD Yuuko, it's mentioned over and over online, is symbolized in the xxxHolic books by the butterfly. I had no butterfly ornaments - and the bee didn't edit well - but managed to fake one reasonably well out of a stylized flower, although I think it looks more mothlike.
After all of that was finished, I was able to do the pencils on the characters. My idea of replicating the poses in The Jewels was quickly thrown out when I couldn't make anyone but Yuuko adopt them. XD So I went for taking faint elements from them, and ended up having all four characters' hands up near their faces, and them facing in similar directions, with Yuuko and Mr. Yang pushing the composition to the right, and D and Kou pushing it to the left. I gave Mr. Yang the knot-thing to give his hand something to do, and because he had one vaguely similar to that in one of the scans I had.
The "pencils" in Photoshop went fairly well. This was the point I gave up on surprising
chomiji and started sending her in-process versions, because I discovered that when it comes to a project this complex, I really need feedback along the way. XD Good to know!I started doing them more realistic, like Mucha's women (that was the point where I posted to LJ whinging that I was going to get complaints on DA for making them fat - I was thinking of Yuuko, who's pretty much a stick except for her chest in CLAMP's style), but ended up taking the faces back a bit closer to anime, to make them more recognizable, but keeping them all in the same style. Their hands are still all rounded and pudgy, though. :D
D was originally conceived as having a bird perched on his hand, but when I was confronted with the fact that everyone else had flowing hair, and he also had very straight-lined clothing, I changed the bird to an anaconda, to get the swirls in behind him. His sari/wrap/thing comes from ONE PANEL - the last panel in the last page of the omake story in Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo 2, which was the only Petshop book I had unpacked. :D That was to give him a bit more softness in front.
Kou drove me nuts with his pose, until I realized my original pose was just too much like the pose in the color page
meganbmoore scanned for memscongeniality was responsible for those. Megan got me Mr Yang). So that was out. Casting my mind about for appropriate symbols/objects, I remembered his shop, and decided that one of those scales traditional Chinese pharmacists use to measure ingredients would be perfect, after which it fell into place.After that, the major decision left was the colors. I spent a lot of time in Painter coming up with a background that was sort-of marbled, but not so patterned that it would distract.
I'd intended to do the The Jewels thing and do each in a separate tone, but without me even noticing it, they decided they wanted to have elements of all the colors in them, so now each one is a major color with elements of the others - Yuuko green, Mr. Yang red, D purple, and Kou orange. Of course, Kou was the most difficult, since he wears WHITE with black trim in canon, and I couldn't have this GIANT WHITE BLOB over on the right unbalancing the composition. His hair toned that down some, and
chomiji suggested a faint pattern, to make it look like white tone-on-tone brocade, and that worked perfectly. :D (And thus forced me to spend lots of time getting patterns into everyone else, since they immediately all wanted them.) I also put light/white elements into everyone, to keep it from being unbalanced.Then last weekend I spent Saturday driving myself nuts trying to figure out shading. Nothing worked. I got another book on Art Nouveau out of the library, which had some GORGEOUS reproductions of lithographs, good enough I could see the shading on The Jewels was made of dots, giving it a wonderful texture. Unfortunately, all my attempts in that direction made them look diseased, and no other shading worked.
I eventually figured out that no shading worked because they didn't want to be shaded. And when I gave up on that and started the next step, tinting the interior lines, it went OH HELL YES and I knew it was the right decision. If only it hadn't taken me eight hours of frustration to work that out!
After that, it was all downhill and doing little annoying steps: fitting patterns into the clothing** and editing them to follow the lines and folds, cleaning up the lines as much as I could, coloring in the background where I'd missed the stray pixel here and there, fixing mistakes.
And then it was just to send it off to
chomiji and post it here! :D Despite the many times along the way I wanted to stab someone, anyone, it turned out well and I don't hate it! XD* The number of inebriated immortals varies in various pictures. Apparently sometimes some of them don't show up to the party.
** Kou's pattern was as hemp-like as I could find in the clip art book. It seemed appropriate.