Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Narseh the techno-mage



I have been trying to do this portrait for weeks. The gentleman in the portrait is the nouergist Narseh Ardan, from my imaginary world of the Noantri. The reddish-orange halo marks him as a nouergist, or techno-mage. His outfit may look like military dress or perhaps a member of a marching band, but it's just the attire of an upper-class male from his ethnicity, the Aurians. Narseh is training in advanced nouergy at the Institute at Surakosai. His wife, Afsaneh, is also with him at the Institute. Just recently, after trying for a long time, Afsaneh and Narseh announced that they are expecting a child.

For some reason, I just could not get the right position for Narseh. I have loads of reference photographs of men in various types of garb, and none of them looked like what I wanted. Finally I found a book of "Victorian Portrait Photographs," and I based Narseh on one of the portraitees, a military officer in a dress uniform. I was not able to work freehand on the figure, part of my current frustration with drawing figures. So I gave in, scanned the photograph, and traced it (with my Wacom tablet and stylus) in Photoshop. Then I colored the drawing in using a comic book coloring technique. I'm not altogether pleased with this piece, but it's only a sketch and now I can move on. Narseh is Photoshop, about 3" x 4".

More art news from me: A piece of mine was accepted for a juried show at my local arts association, Falls Church Arts. This is "Bizmac," which was featured on this Blog on May 13th of this year. I think this is the first time I've ever had a piece accepted to a juried show. This all-digital artwork comes to the gallery as a giclee (high end inkjet) print from my Epson R1900 printer. It may be only a local art show, but it's still some progress. And I'm glad that galleries are accepting digital work as art.

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