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The mis-matched set of daggers for the Moon Wytch has arrived! This time I wanted to build the cross guard out of snakes made of gold. I pushed around the same ideas of snake imagery, wrapping the handle, ornate but contrasting materials, and carved stone elements, but wound up with a completely different, complementary design.
To create specific daggers for each character I started out with research. I was looking for interesting shapes, textures, and an overall gut feeling of what the dagger seemed to be used for or simply, emotionally, how it made me feel. I found a long and very sleek sword with no cross guard and very minimal decoration, all business and all pointy-end! It was mean looking, just very cold. From there I went looking for its opposite: beautiful, jeweled, and ceremonial. A dagger that was for someone with no real purpose for it. I found a nice range of daggers at a museum in London called the Wallace Collection. So I grabbed a few images and started my version of photo-bashing mixed with small messy painting sketches to generate some new versions of daggers. Mainly thinking at this point about silhouette and materials. The snake dagger reference is actually from the 1980s movie Conan the Barbarian, rather than being historic. I wanted to think about it, but be sure to create something separate and new for my story and character. I painted a carved jade center piece of the dagger that physically unites the handle and the blade. This dagger seemed far removed from the mean and more mission-focused daggers from my research. It’s something beautiful that could be from a museum, but it’s kept for sentimental reasons.
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AuthorI'd like to share my process including research, designing an image, painting studies, and final painting techniques using both traditional media and digital tools. I am an artist and illustrator with diverse interests including concept art and children's illustration. Archives
March 2020
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