Disney Nostalgia

In my summer class at SCAD, we were given a fun and nostalgic assignment: design a T-shirt for Threadless' Disney Villains competition! I spent a few days sketching and pouring over the old movies, remembering the days when I used to sit in front of my grandmother's TV, belting out every word to all the songs in Cinderella and scribbling away happily in my sketchbook.

Among my favourites was the story of Sleeping Beauty - I love the scene where the silly witches completely fail at baking the cake and the dress for Aurora's 16th birthday. And when I was little, my dad used to sing "Once Upon A Dream" to me when I would go to bed.

I mean, is this still not completely charming?

They just don't make movies like this anymore.

So for my Disney Villain, I wanted to tackle the dark and dangerously beautiful Maleficent. She frightened me a little as a child (maybe more than I care to admit), but rewatching the movie was really inspiring. I wanted to show a bit of my process here, to give an idea of how I generally work. I really enjoy seeing the thumbnails and sketches of other artists!

I started with a rough idea of the deadly briars twisting around her face and refined it in another thumbnail. I tend to scribble notes in the margins of all my sketches, hehe...

From there, I collected a few references (though the face is more realistic, I still wanted her to have similar facial characteristics as the movie version), and made my sketch. 



I took special care with the briar vines, making sure they had a good amount of variation and depth. Her horns I wasn't entirely sold on, but I knew I could clean them up using my magical Photoshop wizardry skills. [Harry Potter theme song]

I scanned the finished sketch in, and started working in Photoshop to lay in colours and paint her face. 

And here is the finished result!

* Now for the fun part...

I submitted my design to Threadless, and was super excited when they emailed me back saying that my design was pleasing to their "discerning panel of snobby judges" (that's verbatim, by the way... haha!), and that it was now in the running to be printed as an actual T-shirt! (And did I mention there's a little prize of $5,000 for winning?)

To be considered for the prize, my design must get some good votes on it. If you, my dear blog readers, would be so kind as to help me out and vote, I would be very grateful. 
Not only would this be a huge opportunity for me, but it would also directly help me pay for part of my Illustration MFA.

* To vote, please go here:
(click the numbers next to the image to vote - 5 is best!)

http://atrium.threadless.com/villains/subs/#/submission/deadly-beauty/

(It may ask you to login; but you can sign-in through Facebook. No silly creating an account!)

It would mean so much to me to have your support. A 5 is the best score you can get, and more 5's will help me get printed! If you'd share this post and link your friends, I would be so thrilled :)

Who was your favourite Disney Villain?

(or who scared you the most? haha... it was the Queen in Snow White that did me in...)