Project 9: My doll queen

   There once was a girl named Emelie who was a very peculiar child. She had no friends but lots and lots of dolls. She was dearly obsessed with those things. In her own private world in her own little head she would be the doll's queen. She had a grand castle on the top of a tall hill and a beautiful tree and of corse all her subjects, her dolls. Tea time was at noon on the dot and never a moment later and there was a ball every midnight where everyone wore pretty dresses. Dress-up started at four before dinner, there were fairies and doctors and mermaids...but no one could dress as a princess...except, of course, Emelie.

But one day something changed in Emelie that no one could explain, she started being mean to all her dolls, but one doll got it worst of all. It was a Barba Doll that she had just gotten for her Birthday, she had loved everything about her...well, except for one thing. The Barba wore a pretty pink crown that couldn't be removed...Emelie got mad and screamed "I'm the princess! NOT you!" She threw a fuss that rang out so great that her skin began to crack, for it was now made of porcelain. Her obsession morphed her body and mind and it was only a matter of time before doll heads started forming out of her morphed body.  Her heart turned gray and so did her world. Her once bright kingdom now a dark empire. She rules with an iron fist, destroying all the subjects she once held dear, in fear that they will rise against her throne. Her scepter is now the headless Barbra and her cape is adorned with the heads of her victims. No heads means no doll can ever wear a crown again. Only Emelie can dress as princess...

Hope you liked my story, this is Emelie, my doll queen. I started her as part of my concentration. I started by sketching her out:

I really liked her look and how creepy she was so I started right away.

Like my other concentration pieces, I wanted her to be drawn on a huge piece of paper. This proved to be the wrong corse of action:

Her proportions were extremely off and her line work was not the best. She needed to be thinner to look more creepy so I restarted on a smaller paper. This worked a lot better and a lot faster. I drew the whole thing out and outlined it in the span of one class period and it only took one period to shade. I thought I was done...but apparently wasn't.

A lot of my art has no background and if it does it's normally just a color or shadow. I have never liked drawing backgrounds in my art because it takes focus away from the character, especially when poorly done. I don't normally create landscapes, it's just not my thing; so I'm not too good at creating backgrounds. But I guess I'd gotten sway with one too many background-less pieces... so when I asked Mrs Rossi what the piece still needed...of course it was a background.

My first thought was to make a room full of doll boxes, but that was too busy. Then I thought about the minimal, which was making dolls bow down to her...but thought it wouldn't look right. Ultimately... I went for a simple background. I drew out a large and creepy tree and then a sort of mountain landscape. She's a queen so she needed a castle and of course...dead subjects. So I started on this idea:

When I started shading I knew I wanted dark values but I needed more control than ink or watercolor. But.. I didn't want to use just pen either because it is very tedious and wouldn't look right anyways. I once saw someone use pen and pencil together in a video, so decided to go with that. I used different pencils for the darks and lights and used a black colored pencil for the harsh darks. 

I then worked on the gradation of values in the background and worked in minor lines and details. It actually turned out pretty good. simple enough that it didn't take away entirely from Emelie but complex enough to make it an actual background. I outlined the main figures in pen to emphasize them and my project was complete. Here she is:

                   My Doll Queen