After All This Time?

First, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the Womanthology kickstarter campaign. I am completely flabbergasted (in a good way) that in less than 24 hours we exceeded our goal! And it's still going! Totally amazing, I can hardly believe it.

Second...
...I wanted to share with you some of the research I've been doing for a personal project. I was inspired by Gallery Nucleus's Harry Potter Tribute Exhibition, so I decided to do a Harry Potter painting of my own. I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't read the books, but I was so touched by a particular chapter in The Deathly Hallows that I instantly staged an image in my head of the scene. I jumped right in and started doing some visual research before laying down a sketch.

[Caution: spoiler in the image below. Don't read that taped page if you don't want to know things!]

A lot of times when I'm in research-mode I don't draw very much. I'm mostly gathering reference images and information. I started by thinking about the environment and the things that would fill it. (Thank goodness there are some thorough Harry Potter wikis out there to ensure accuracy!) I admit that I'm a little concerned about those delicate silver instruments...I'm not much for drawing machinery, so these will prove to be difficult for me. I'm kind of avoiding them at the moment.

Character designs! Dumbledore seemed to come to me quite easily, whereas I'm not happy with Snape. I realized, however, that the pose I'm thinking of obscures most of his face, so I don't really have to worry about that! Instead, I gave a little more thought to his wardrobe. I liked the idea of him wearing a sort of Victorian-style opera cloak, in contrast to more modern, fitted uniform. I want his clothes to highlight his stance, since I'm almost solely relying on his body language to convey emotion. Still working on getting that wand hand right. I like the shape of the smaller Snape's hand, but there's more strength and drama in the larger version.

I hope you enjoyed crawling inside my head a little bit. More to come!