Levan May Cry

A couple of years ago my good friend and business companion asked me to draw a portrait of his son. Last year, when I still lived in Georgia, we took some photos of Levan (that's the name of the boy) to be used as the reference for the future artwork, where, as we decided after some brainstorming, he would be "cosplaying" Nero, the main character from Devil May Cry 4, one of Levan's favorite videogames.

My own son, Sandro, who happens to be Levan's friend, also participated in that photo-session -- I try to kill two birds with one stone whenever I can. That's when I got the idea of a double portrait featuring Levan and Sandro. I liked that idea so much that I postponed Levan May Cry and immediately started working on The Little Heartbreakers, planning to finish this "side project" very quickly and proceed with the "main thing" right after that. But, as it often happens with me, the work dragged out -- I was able to finish the double portrait (seen on the right) only in May 2010, when I had already moved to Lithuania. By that time I had so many other things to do that I had to forget about Levan May Cry for a while.

A couple of weeks ago I finally found time to sit down to it. I couldn't linger any longer -- the kid was growing up, after all. Besides, my mother was coming to visit us by the end of September, so it was a perfect time to finish the drawing and send it to Georgia with her.

Initially I intended to use my usual combination of color pencils and ballpoint pens on this, but then I changed my mind and decided to make it through only with color pencils, like I did with The Little Heartbreakers. It would serve as another proof that I can draw pictures without the help of the "magic" ballpoints.

As the reference for Nero's costume and his famous grotesque arm (replicating those textures was no piece of cake, I must say) I used some game poster found on the Web. Since the character has white hair, I had some reservations about the perspective of Levan's brown hair turning all white. But, as the work progressed, all my doubts dissipated: the white-haired Levan looked quite convincing -- maybe, in part, thanks to the slightly oriental shape of his eyes, very suitable for all this "Japanese fantasy slasher" thing.

I usually try to distribute the basic colors and shades right from the beginning, developing all the important parts of the drawing as evenly and simultaneously as possible. It helps keeping the control over the drawing. But in this case, as you can see from the WIP shots above, I chose to proceed from top to bottom, almost entirely finishing one part, before switching to another. This way I successfully avoided soiling the artwork with my own hands dirtied while working on the areas with dark, intense colors, quite prevalent in this drawing.

As you may know, I'm using a new signature since 2010, with no date under it. But, as requested by Levan's father, I signed and dated the artwork with my old signature. I was able to finish and scan the artwork in the nick of time -- just 15 minutes before the taxi for the airport arrived. As I'm writing this post, the drawing is flying in my mother's suitcase from Vilnius to Tbilisi, where Levan is waiting for it impatiently...

My First Lithuanian Orders

I've been living in Lithuania since the end of January, which makes it six months already, but I still haven't managed to establish myself as a designer in the local market, so to speak. No big surprise -- nobody knows me here, and starting things from the scratch is always hard. Still, after some fishing in the local Web I was able to catch me a couple of fresh Lithuanian customers. About time!

The first was a basketball-related organization called Krepšinis tau (meaning "basketball to you"). They contacted me by the end of July about modifying their existing logo for usage on blanks and other documents, and possibly creating a new one, if I managed to beat the current logo. Alas, the logo managed to beat me instead, although I tried really hard -- several dozens of different demo versions can confirm that. Yet, we managed to develop the print-optimized version of the logo (I don't feel comfortable with posting the visual sample here, since it's based on other designer's work). Also, the customer chose one of my versions (seen below) for possible alternative usages -- like web-banners, for instance.

The first pancake is always lumpy, as Russians say. Fortunately, the second pancake... er... order went with a swing. It wasn't exactly an order, though -- I won a logo contest on some local job-related website. The logo was for a company which rents and sells cars, and the client chose one of my versions.

Not much, I know, but still not bad -- I've done my first Lithuanian design jobs and pocketed (metaphorically) some local currency! Hopefully, there will be more of it... the works, I mean. And the money, of course -- designers need to eat, you know...

The Persistence of Khinkali

Everything started with... my avatar. Yes, the one with a melting khinkali on it. I made it about 5 years ago just for fun, but presently I'm using it as my "official" avatar everywhere: on this blog, on my deviantART profile, at ArtWanted.com and many other art or design-related websites, forums, etc. The avatar itself is an entirely digital work -- I took a fragment of Salvador Dali's famous The Persistence of Memory and digitally painted a khinkali over it, replacing the melting clock.

A short explanation for those who don't know what khinkali is -- it's a national Georgian sort of meat dumplings, usually served with beer. It is believed to be originated from Georgian highlands, and since I also come from one of those regions, lust (there is no other word to describe it) for khinkali is in my veins, genetically. Also, I'm a die-hard fan of Dali (obviously), so the avatar served as a manifestation of the eternal unity of the two things I equally cherish in this world -- Dali and khinkali.

No, I'm just kidding -- there was no idea behind the avatar whatsoever. As I said, I did it merely for fun. But, ever since I made it, I've always wanted to bring this visual idea into life as a full piece of art. Naturally, I never had time to sit down to it.

Then something interesting happened. Earlier this year I learned that Salvador Dali's works were going to be exhibited in Chavchavadze House-Museum, located in Tsinandali, Eastern Georgia. The exhibition indeed took place, and it lasted for three months, from April to June. By that time I had already moved to Lithuania and was unable to attend it, but that's not the point. The point is, that this fortunate event revived the sparkle smoldering in me all these years -- the idea of connecting Dali to Georgia, something in the spirit of that khinkali avatar. It was like a sign from above, so I said to myself: That's it, I'm making The Persistence of Khinkali this summer!

I started working at the beginning of August. The most important thing was to choose the medium. Since it was to be practically a copy of Dali's original oil painting, the first thing that came to my mind was oil on canvas, but I quickly rejected the thought -- I've never touched oils since 1995 and, while it seemed to be an appropriate occasion for a glorious "return of the Jedi," messing with them without a properly equipped studio wouldn't do any good. Instead, I decided to use oil pastels, which are able to imitate oil painting quite effectively. However, they are too rough to handle Dali's refined technique all alone, so I left the delicate parts for color pencils.

You might be surprised, but the original painting is quite small in size -- only 24 x 33 cm (9.5 x 13 in). It was quite convenient for me, since I'm used to working in small formats. As for the paper, I set my choice on Canson Montval -- a French brand of heavy watercolor paper. Working on a toothed paper with oil pastels is a pain in the buttocks, but the achieved "canvas feel" makes all the suffering really worth it. Generally, if you want to replicate an oil painting, but don't want to use oils or acrylics, oil pastels are your best friends: as you can see from the WIP shots below, even the process of drawing itself -- creating the under-layers, applying the colors on each other, etc. -- pretty much resembles the oil painting technique.

The work in progress also shows that not all the elements were initially there -- the monument to King Gorgasali and Metekhi Church were added in the process. These distinct landmarks of Tbilisi were present in the concept right from the beginning, and the fact that they are absent on first WIP shots has merely a technical explanation: in order to retain the continuity of the color gradation in the sky, first I blended the colors in the area, then drew the monument and the church on top of it.

Beside the khinkali and the landmarks, there is another "Georgianized" element in the picture -- myself. Or rather, my soft, sleepy head, resting peacefully, with a khinkali covering my ear. If you look at the original, you might see certain similarities between my head and that of (presumably) Dali's, although my nose, naturally, is more Georgian. Also, I have a mouth!

The Persistence of Khinkali might lay the foundation for a whole new series about "Dali in Georgia," but let's not beat the gun. For now let's just say that this is my humble tribute to the great artist, whose legacy continues to inspire creative ideas all around the world. Including Georgia, as you see.

BAMA Vodka Reloaded

Earlier this year I did a couple of magazine ads for BAMA and VONOST 88, the two leading vodka brands of Solomon Spirits, a US-based alcoholic beverages manufacturer and one of my major clients abroad. Now they have ordered me a new advertisement for a re-branded version of BAMA Vodka, which might share the container and the visual style with VONOST 88.

My part was to create a new advertisement poster, based on VONOST 88 magazine ad (seen on the left). The task seemed quite simple, since I had all the basic materials at hand. I decided to combine the elements from both previous designs and add an Alabama landscape in the background to cheer up things a bit. That's where the problems started.

The first design demos featured a vintage photo by William Christenberry, taken near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It suited the theme perfectly, because, according to the advertisement text, the vodka is being filtered with "the world's best limestone quarried exclusively from Alabama," and the photo displayed some hills, looking pretty much like a quarry site. Unfortunately, that wasn't gonna happen: the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which holds the copyright on that photo, is a division of the US Federal Government and thus cannot allow their materials to be used in liquor campaigns. And the happiness was so close, as Russians say.

So we had to find another scenery for the background. We searched high and low, but were unable to find anything as fitting as that Tuscaloosa photo. The rocky landscapes from Alabama Hills would make a nice replacement, but unfortunately they are located in California, not Alabama. Finally, tired and frustrated, we gave up and decided in favor of a photo of Mount Cheaha, the highest mountain in Alabama. By the way, the photo we chose is in public domain. No copyright, no headache.

Daily Soap

Here's a series of liquid soap labels for the same manufacturer who runs the Eco+ brand. It's called DAILY and it comes in three flavors. I've used an image of Diana's hand in the design. Again. She really should start demanding royalties for this. Ha ha, just kidding...

Demonic Khan

First of all, let's make things clear: I don't draw celebrity portraits. In fact, I hate them (the portraits, not the celebrities themselves, of course). Yes, I did some movie posters when I was a kid, but that was different.

So why Roy Khan? What's so special about him that forced me to make an exception to the rule? I can't say for sure, but certainly being a Kamelot fan has nothing to do with it. Maybe it's his face, so alive, able to convey a cascade of different emotions in a single song -- from anger and contempt to grief and lust. The man does amazing things with his expressions on stage. This, combined with his brilliant vocals, captivates and energizes the audience no less than the band's ass-kicking music itself.

That said, let's move on to the drawing. My task here was to depict Khan's "demonic" nature, as he rules over the audience with his "dominating" poses and "spellbinding" gesticulations, often seen both on stage and in music videos. Speaking of the latter, the Ghost Opera video represents one of the perfect demonstrations of Khan's scenic image, so I decided to use a still frame captured from it as the reference for his facial expression. The solid black eyes fitted into the concept just perfectly.


I was unable to find any suitable images for the pose reference though, so I had to improvise. Since I have a terrible deficiency in male models, I had to stand in front of the camera myself. Luckily, I mostly needed only hands, and my hands happen to look quite like Khan's (at least, I have successfully convinced myself of that). For the rings I used the still frames from the same Ghost Opera music video.

Now the costume. I wanted something a bit fancier than he usually wears on stage, something insanely detailed to challenge my drawing skills. When searching for the Gothic dress references on the Web, I stumbled upon a costume (photo on the left) which I thought could serve as a good base. For extra solemnity, I decided to add a band collar to the suite. Finally, with all the references in place, I started to draw my first "official" celebrity portrait ever.

Since the dominant color had to be black, the choice of medium was obvious: graphite pencils. I hadn't drawn anything solely in graphite in years, so it promised to be a pleasant digression, reminding of my art college days. But it wasn't, as it quickly made me remember what a messy medium graphite can be. Below you can see the WIP shots, documenting every step of my pathetic struggle with this medium, once my favorite.

I can't say exactly how long it took, because it's hard to keep track of time when drawing occasionally, only a few hours or even minutes per day. Overall, it dragged on for about a month. Despite being long and exhausting, the process still was fun. However, I won't be drawing anything in graphite pencils anytime soon, that's for sure.

A Perfect Reward

My copy of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 arrived a couple of days ago. It was sent to me by the Corel Corporation as a reward for my participation in its beta-testing. I honestly had no idea I would receive any software for my participation, so it came as a pleasant surprise. Besides the software DVD, the bundle includes a Collector's Notepad -- a hard-covered book with 200 blank pages to be filled with creative ideas and concepts.

I've been working in CorelDRAW since 1996, practically on a daily basis. It's my primary designer's tool of trade, so being presented with an opportunity to take part in the process of making it better was a great benefit for me already, and getting such a wonderful bonus for my humble contribution is certainly twice as rewarding.