Thursday, September 20, 2012

Milla

I'm a pretty big fan of Milla Jovovich, but I've not drawn her very often, I think it's been twice, including the drawing that I'm going to show off now.

This is my reference:

This is the end result:

I used two pencils, a mystery pencil and a 3B Faber Castell pencil. The mystery pencil, is a mystery pencil, because it has no information about what it is on it, it's yellow like a Mongol 2, but the graphite feels silkier and I also had no issue drawing over it with the 3B, like it has happened with the Mongol.
It was also considerably dark, when I applied pressure, it was rather nice. So nice, that I considered finishing the drawing with the mystery pencil. HOWEVER, I only have that one mystery pencil and I have no idea what it is, for me to get another one, so that was stressing me out a little bit lol!

Since my reference leaves out a fourth of her head, I decided to leave that part really sketchy and have the face and part of the hair real proper detailed, 'cuz I thought it would be cool and fun and it turned out very cool! =D

I drew on a Strathmore drawing book, smooth surface, 80lbs paper, 11 x 14 inches.

ALSO, I mentioned Milla at some point, with a progress shot of the drawing AND SHE REPLIED TO ME and that's how she made my entire month/year/probably life. So I screencapped that shit, posted in everywhere, retweeted it and then I exploded. So here's the screencap, because it's related.


I also mentioned her with a picture of the finished drawing, but she didn't reply to that one. I can't imagine how many times she gets mentioned lol

So now that I've shown that off, remember my Facebook page, which you should seriously like and share with your friends if you haven't yet: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thank you for reading, guys!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Somebody that I used to know


I heard this song and saw the video for the first time two days ago and I was immediately reminded of an ex-lover. Specially, the part where he says that she now treats him like a stranger and how she's now somebody that he used to know.
Break ups are seldom easy, and a person that you were amazingly close to at some point, becomes precisely a stranger. I like to think that when there is a break up for genuine reasons, there is no right or wrong, either party has the right to feel however way they might feel. The song shows both perspectives of a breakup, neither one is right or wrong, they just are.
Now I'm going to try to talk/write about what I like in this video and song, which is difficult, because I absolutely fucking LOVE every single thing about the video and the song. The song in general is mellow, but it manages to be really intense.
I'm not one to claim that I *know* what art is, so this might be an iffy statement, but I love how ARTISTIC this video is. What with the body painting, the merging with the background wall, the painting of the background wall itself, the fact that I feel that both singers are doing a performance and an installation, rather than just performing the song. The colors, the stop motion of the painting, the presence of degradation of color.
I LOVE what a good job both singers do at conveying the emotions and feelings of the song. The guy, very genuinely hurt, serious, raising his eyebrows, staring sincerely into the camera, with crazy huge, beautiful eyes. When he raises his voice to sing, the frown in between the eyebrows, he opens his mouth wide, maybe in desperation, channeling the need to scream out the sadness. I love his teeth, I love his fucked up teeth and how they just take over his face, when he opens his mouth to sing, but only peek through shyly, when he doesn't open it much, how the huge canines push through to give his mouth that shape.
Kimbra does an amazing job, what I like the most of what she does is when she gets close to him and she's done singing and does the vocalizations with a frustrated face, she knows he doesn't understand and isn't willing to try. She opens her mouth wide, almost clenches her teeth afterwards with frustration, looks down. Also at the end of the video, when she's slowly unpainted, I guess, that's when she stops being somebody he knew, she's different now.
I like how truthful it is to the break up situation. The way they look at each other at the end of the video, with resignation.
I've done you and myself the favor of screencapping a couple of shots of this dude's crazy gorgeous face and a screencap of his awesome teeth.