Saturday, March 31, 2012

At Last, the Top Seekrit Revealed.

Way, way back, I blogged about a project I called Top Seekrit. The project took awhile, due to the vagaries of winter weather and life just getting in the way, as it often does.

The painting was more-or-less finished in early January, and presented to the birthday girl who inspired it on the day of her party. Unfortunately there wasn't time to get it properly photographed. Plus, the clearcoat was still milky in a couple spots, which I have to admit made me more than a little nervous. What if it never cleared completely? You really don't wanna be the guy who ruins a pretty girl's birthday present.

Fortunately it dried nicely, and a couple days ago I finally had it photographed by my good friend John Watson.

But wait - I'm getting ahead of myself here.





It all started this way: she told me about a seahorse tattoo she had, and how she'd love a painting based on Charles (the aforementioned seahorse, of course). She'd already seen several of my first-generation metalflake paintings, and liked the look of those. So really, it was all just a matter of sorting out details after that.

First I did a tracing of her tattoo, which hopefully didn't tickle too much:


Then I refined that a bit, and defined the lineart better:


Next came the final ink lineart, ready to be transferred onto the painted surface:






(It was during this stage that I decided to add the little circular bits to Charles's crest.)

And how did all this turn out, you ask? Well, a lot like this:




Oh, and here's a little macro detail to give you more of an idea of how the metalflake paintings look in the real world:



What can I say? When I'm inspired the whole process is just... easier.

Bret Taylor
Vancouver, BC
March 31, 2012

P.S. As always, thanks, Tess.

2 comments:

Write On NZ said...

Fabulous! Thank goodness the Top Seekrit project has finally been revealed. I was going crazy with the suspense. And, what a worthy recipient too :-)

Bret Taylor said...

Thanks. And yeah, of course she is.