The Hazards of Love

Edit: [5/8/11]: Now with a somewhat-more-decent-photo!
DETAILED LOOK HERE

Well hey gaiz, AHRT! So, this has been the fruit of my labor for about two weeks now It was a project based on an artist named Joseph Cornell, who mainly specializes in these shadowbox-like crafts. I decided to base mine off of an album I recently fell in love with, Hazards of Love by The Decemberists. It's actually a concept album so there's a whole story to it, hence the people here. If you'd like the full, detailed story, here's a pretty damn good interpretation: [link]

BUT if you're looking for the short version, pretty much William (the dude at the bottom left), the adopted son of the Queen of the Forest (very top), who also is cursed to transform into a fawn everyday, had fallen in love with Margaret (bottom right). But then one day, The Rake (center), a guy who went psycho and killed his kids (everyone else) by poisoning, drowning, and burning them, kidnapped Margaret. And that's all you really need to know for this since that introduces all the characters.

Anyway, this photo doesn't do this justice, but pretty much I made a collage of the characters for this. All of these pictures are pretty much based on stock photos (except for the Rake; stock credits at bottom), although from the start I pretty much had a full idea of how I wanted them to look. The Queen is also of my own design; I wanted her to look very goddess like and I'm very happy with how she turned out But MAN I am so glad I had a tablet for this. Certainly made a lot of things easier!

I wanted to give the portraits a speed-paint kind of feel with its paint stokes and whatnot, although you really can't see the detail here. I experimented a lot with textures (the kids all have something to relate to their death overlayed on them) and styles, although in the end I had to rush to get this done so some of it is a tad bit sloppy. Over each character's face are the lyrics to their respective theme songs, although the printer kind of killed it so you can't really see it. The whole album also takes place in a magical forest, so that's why there's a bunch of fake flowers and whatnot going around.

And yeah. This is a good album, you should buy it I'm very happy with how this came out Getting better at coloring, that's for sure!

YOU CAN SEE THE DIGITAL PORTRAITS HERE (and please do, it looks SO much better than this horrible photo)

HUUUUGGEE thanks to all the MILLIONS of stock providers I used:
William: [link]
Margaret: [link]
The Rake had no actual stock photo, only a pose reference from a posing site and a general image for a clothing ref
Charlotte: [link] [link] [link]
Dawn: [link] [link] [link] [link]
Isaiah: [link] [link] [link]
And finally, the Queen: [link] [link] [link] [link]

Hope you guys like it