Last image Struggles

By this point, it was difficult for me to think of anything original or something I felt I hadn't tried. I wanted to create something purely traditional, but didn't know what else to look at other than images of people. I wanted to try and show some architecture, but there are so very little sources on even the internet, that I didn't know where to begin.

Eventually I came across a site- sadly too late to have been used well in my previous pictures. It was a site showing Nautch Girls (Dancing Girls), exactly between 1850-1900. This would have been useful if I had found it earlier.

People of India 1850-1900 

 I was inspired finally to create an image showing both architecture and figures. I wanted to use the new references badly. So I sketched more and came up with a modest make-belief type scene, that divided the rich from poor. The photos from the website above, had shown mostly poor people, people who reminded me of gypsies.

The scanned images were merged and enhanced with photoshop.

Victorian India

Images referenced from website and 'The Stone Empire'.

The Lovers wip and final

I made neat pencil lineart for the couple, I hoped to colour them digitally, and like the previous image- to place them in a black and white photograph. Little did I realise, it was starting to look too painfully obvious. So I redrew the image I wanted to use.

Referenced from 'Stones of Empire' 

While drawing this I left out many decorative parts, I kept the area empty, and left all decorations out. I wanted to use some images from 'Mughal Decoration' to texture over the staircase and wall.

 

Using the same Mughal Fence, I shaped and warped several copies of the same image, overlapping them to create a continuous fence. I avoided adding colour to these in case there was an oddity. I also used a wallpaper image from the same book.

The Lovers

The Lovers

I wanted to create an image of love, and perhaps drama. Bollywood came to mind. I made sketches of women, and a few of men- for practice.

Eventually I attempted a sketch of a couple holding hands, dramatically in poses that would suggest a mid-point of dance. I was just thinking of Bollywood when I was sketching this. Much of the reference was taken from the Shishya 2010 Calender, and a particular photo from The Army In India.

Prince like image.

Also a Dancer Girl

Elephant Pyramid

With the sketches of elephants I had the idea of stacking each elephant on top of each other, creating a pyramid shape. I wanted a dancing girl on the top but found it tedious to add even more to the image.
I used a mesh that i had cut out from a mughal fence image,I wanted to use this as a good background pattern, but found in the end it was much too busy than the foreground. It took the focus from the elephants and I was left with a very busy picture. No matter what colours or textures I chose for the background (behind the mughal fence mesh) it would either look too simple and cheap or too busy/messy. This was my opinion of course, and when I asked other students, they had also agreed. In the end I rendered 3 images with different colours: Gold, Green, White. My personal favourite is the golden background.

Golden

Green

White

Elephants

I made a couple of sketches of elephants, and an idea striked me. Although this is a rather abstract idea, and it would be slightly irrelevent to Victorian India. However I want to express the culture of India either way. Existing materials and references were used. This time I took reference from the internet.

My sketches:

The Fat Indian Man WIP and Final Image

Here is the finished and coloured Indian soldier. I imagine of adding accessories via photoshopping the existing accessories from the Mughal Decorations book.


Eventually I finish this but The room he is photoshoped in has become empty and boring, I try to add extra bits of photoshopped material... and eventually a completely digitally painted little girl on the bench, as shown in the Work In Progress picture:

Here is the final Result.

Personally I regret the composition is poor, and perhaps I could have improved it with more future planning.

The Fat Indian Man

After looking at some photographs of some uniformed men, I decided I wanted to create an almost cartoon character based on the uniforms. Typically I have pictured a uniformed indian soldier holding a bit of weight. And so I began sketching him:

Obviously this didn't make for a very good picture on it's own so I also thought of implimenting this image into a black and white photograph. I scanned and coloured him.

Eventually I placed it onto a nice black and white photograph of a 19th century home, assuming this is one from India as it was from the 'Stones of Empire' book.

Pure photo manipulation

Here I have used several images to form a colage, in each image I edited with colours, layer styles and filters. I 'clone-tool'ed the furthest background picture to create an extended floor.

As the ideas came to me, I added more and more photos from several books I have lent from the library. This is a more pop-art influenced picture, however all the pictures used ( appart from the dancing women) are photos taken from the mid 19th century, therefore are victorian. Buildings are from the British colonies at that time.

Here is the Work in progress:

And the fiinished picture:

More useful reference images

With the three books I acquired I scanned in all possibly useful images I could find. While I looked through the books, I came up with some ideas that I will post next.

Book of Architecture in mid 19th Century:

I thought of using black and white photos to manipulate to create a 'fake' scene in history. Of course it would needs to look original and a little bit rediclous. For instance in the image above, I place giant elephants/men/children dancing down the street. If I were to pursue the idea I would also add additional patterns and colourize the image using photoshop.
 Here are more images that could be used as a partial backdrop of the final image:

Items like these (below) could be used as decoration props:

 

For now I leave it here and will work on the image I currently have the idea of.

First photoshop of Indian Goddess

An idea occured that I could combine my current existing drawing of an Indian woman (or any line drawing) with the patterns I gathered from the 'Mughal Decoration' book. It is not neccessarily Victorian, however I know that in the victorian period, decorations in general were fancy and intricately colourful. With this I tried to capture with golden floral and one of the patterned backgrounds. I used 'Liquify' to shape the floral onto the fabric, with colour dodge for highlights. I used Defuse glow and hue change for the background. Everything else is digitally painted behind the drawing itself.

Here is the work in progress, m-intimacy is my online alias, anything submitted online will be under this name as it is my most well known identity for artwork.

Indian Goddess

Inspired by a woman photographed in a book called 'The Sari'.

Study of Indian characters & Mughal Decoration

While so far there is not a lot going on the Victorian period of India I took the chance to study characters in daily India from my current rather irrelevent books: [Sketchest of women/men in daily life of India]


There is also an 'Indian Dance' Calender I collected from another student house (my mother is a landlady, and the calender belonged to a student that has already left the country for good). This calender shows traditional dance, this would be useful as reference for posture, colour and fashion. Perhaps this is not was in the Victorian period, but perhaps it could be of some use for visual variance:

The Mughal Decoration book is of an Islamic India, and gives many interesting patterns. There isn't much to do with the Victorian period, so I took it upon myself to collect some patterns and pictures of ornaments that could be used in a Victorian Indian themed picture. I scanned and kept some of the patterns that would seem useful in texturing of photoshopping or just reference:

 

Pen box decoration

Indian Turban Jewel

Indian Turban Jewel

Mughal Panel

First books

Reference: Vayjanthimala (famous actress)

From my journey to Cardiff Central's Library, I found five potential books that could be used. I was able to acquire two of the five books, but I may return in a few days to collect the others. 'The Sari' informs about women's clothes while 'Mughal Decoration' gives some insight to Indian Architecture. From this so far I produce a couple of images, one which was slightly improvised is the picture of a famous actress from india, I'm hoping to use this image in one of my final six images.

Attempt to gather references

Cardiff Library is closed for until the end of New Years, I fail to gather resources today.
Cardiff National Museum does not contain any Victorian period history/paintings relevant. The latest is the 1800's and I need art sources from 1860-1900 at least.

Research: History of Victorian period

In order to understand the Victorian period better, I briefly looked up information on Wikipedia and a site dedicated to the Victorian Period. Queen Victoria (1837-1901) is made the empress of India in 1877, while the victorian period began with the reign of Queen Victoria, I'm more confident that looking into the years between 1870-1900 of India would produce more accurate results rather than searching up the entire life span of Queen Victoria herself.

For the next couple of weeks I plan to go to several libraries: Cardiff Central, Swansea Denevour Centre & Owen Library. To look up visual and informational references to this paticular period in India.
In the worse case scenario I looked up books online India Photography books and printed out the catalogue if there are no decent reference books in any of the libraries. I will resort to buying one or two from Amazon.

Pictorial Intervention and Substitution- The High Victorian Period of India

At the beginning of the assignment , I wanted to choose India because of all the intricate patterns and designs of clothing, jewellry and hair in any period. The Victorian period is considered visually rich, so I expect that India wouldn't dissappoint.

Admittedly, I don't have a great knowledge of the architecture, but I plan to look into this when researching.