Lipstick

Here is the first post of what I hope to be a regular thing from now on here at the Bors Blog; posting my creative process for illustrations.

This is for an article on campusprogress.org, Red Lips, No Veil, about an Iranian-American student who grew up in a conservative Muslim family and used lipstick, among other things, to dissent from the strict rules of appearance and behavior she was subjected to by her father.



I don't have any sketches or pencils to post for this, but here are the two sets of inks I did. Usually, I will create a second layer of inks on a piece of tracing paper, which create the main fields of shading. It gives them a more organic feel instead of creating them entirely in photoshop. Plus you can feather the edges easily.




Then I'll combine the layers in photoshop adding the fields of color to the inks I want to change from black.



Initially, I went with this color scheme. I was trying for a sexy, defiant look so I thought that a purple veil and the green background matching her eyes made that happen a little more.