Reinventing The Tattoo Forum

Here's my concept sketch for the first drawing exercise. My workload is pretty heavy right now so I wasn't able to go into a color study. If necessary I can do that and re-submit.

I chose to bring the viewer into the castle to take advantage of larger shapes, mainly the curving walls. There are straight lines used but I tried to stagger them in to areas that were less curvy on the arm and tried to vary their lengths. I also use some buttress type elements in the architecture to break up those straight lines as well. By essentially using a worms eye view I was able to get some more curves in the cylindrical parts of the building with this perspective. The gateway and bridge were also included for more curved shapes without getting too cartoony. The overall color scheme for the stonework would be cool grey and blue with some lavender. I would texture the stonework with some soft white or light grey to add more interest without going crazy with linework. Within the windows I would use some soft warm glows of yellow and orange to simulate candle light.

I love the fall so I chose to use some blowing oak leaves as an organic element to creat more flow throughout the piece. The proportions are a bit off where they travel behind the castle but I figured I'd take some artistic license with that. With the leaves I would use some warm earth tones but could also get away with a little bit of green in them as well as a sign of early fall. These would not be outlined in black but rather in a dark earth tone.

The moon was added along the edge of the forward bulge on the deltoid as a "period" at the end of the sentence, since I feel that the viewer begins at the bottom and travels up through the piece. It also gives me a strong light source to cast shadows. The chest side of the moon would dissolve in some textural shading to avoid framing the piece.

Thanks for your time and input on this concept sketch.

Lou