I thought that too about the cannon wheel! And planning to make it look gorgeous, a bit more of a crown without loosing the feel of a wheel but so far I'm choosing it for the final design.

Hi! Finally starting with color and light! I have used my first close up design for it, and took the final decision of choosing the cannon wheel as the official Spanish mantilla for her. Apart from designing, I needed to write down a narrative behind my character in order to keep on creating, and it has become a some kind of war tale.

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I have been seeing the submissions and I can tell my approach to the meaning of “war” is different for me. Some designs are awesome, but I’m surprise with the fact that we have normalized that these characters enjoy battles and wars within the narratives. Some characters even smile while fighting, and out of here, I can find a million references with the same fact. For me, war is tragedy. It is something that would freak me out, and gathering the courage to face war is what I believe is the real epic. But it is only my point of view and being realistic after all. Within the context of La Maja’s story, and happening in the bloodiest episode of the modern era of Spain, she has no choice and has the duty of becoming a soldier, forced by her thoughts of loosing everything she owns in present, and the possible future that would not occur. Because war is death, and again, it's a tragedy. I want her to represent that meaning. That has driven me to draw her sad, crying even, because it’s her duty to enroll in war to achieve freedom for her people and future children.

I had to upload the png file, so right click to open it in another window if you want to see it in detail. The jpeg file seems to show the colours more in a grey hue, and those aren't the real ones

On the other hand, I would have never thought that the Spanish flag and its colours would match soooo well with the artillery theme! They are perfect to represent cannons and fire. Also, I think red represents very well a powerful bloody drama, plus, it kinda makes the character more passionate about it. And red for make-up is also sexy. Yellow works well too as highlights, contrasting with reds.

Will work more with the concepts 😊. By the way, this time I listened a lot to the album Los Ángeles by Rosalía. Highly recommended haha. All that text that I wrote above about war is also inspired by Rosalía’s lyrics, as the entire album is like a sad story of death, or seeing how life is ending. Although this time I listened to The road to el Dorado’s OST by Elton John, casually about two spaniards in the 16th century haha.

Hi! It feels like an eternity since my last post. This design has taken a lot of my time to have it done, but I can say finally that I have my front view fully designed! I’ve been struggling way too much with details, adding way more than what I had planned in the beginning with the lineart. Sadly, I have been able to spend only two/three hours per day recently, after I finished my Christmas break and came back to work.

The goal was to mix the Spanish soldier outfit with the majismo trend, and the process became madness with so many patterns! Don’t even ask how many layers I used. I could not respond accurately. Even so, I enjoyed the making a lot, although I admit that I’ve suffered a bit with some of the details. There is a song from the 2000s, by a young spanish singer that says “antes muerta que sencilla”, which means, rather dead than simple. Many of us have grown in Spain with that phrase, and I had it in my mind with every single stroke of those trousers and veils!! Like, she is going to war, but hey, don't forget to dress up with your best clothes because you worth it girl

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Well, I’ve done a shot breakdown with the progression. I couldn’t divide it in more shots given that my file was way too messy as I mentioned before!
First, I did the textures and solid colours, and then, I started with volume, light, adjusting final colours and made sure everything was set in its right place.

I have added some accessories that I have found doing a bit more of research from that time in Spain. One of them is a necklace with medals and symbols that were quite traditional. On the other hand, I found this amazing good luck charm that children used to wear on their hip. As soon as I saw it, I knew La Maja needed to wear it too.

So, this is the final result.

And this is a test, again, with a background and the colours around representing Spain.

Hope you like it! Remember to do right click on the images to see them bigger in another window

Next step: back view (I’ll take it easy this time), planning thumbnails…and…another surprise I hope I can show a rough concept of it this weekend!

Well, I couldn't do as much as I wanted this weekend as I thought I could, and next weeks seems to be busy for me. But I'll do my best with the updates, sharing at least some little progress. I think I should explain a bit more of my last post, going through some decisions that I had to take according to the period of time and trends. They might not seem a lot once it's done, but I can tell they gave me some headaches to be accurate.

I have designed a profile view. Having some other views will help me better with facial expressions in the near future, and thinking already in the final illustration

Hi! As promised, here is another post explaining a bit more about some relevant details from my front view design of La Maja, aaand…revealing the surprise in the end (bit by bit!).

Well, as you have seen in my other posts, I kinda planned the mixture in between the soldier outfit and the majismo trend. But I realized I was introducing more the soldier outfit than clothes that could represent the majismo. That happened especially with the trousers. Firstly, jacket and trousers were inspired in the soldier uniform, but then, also the boots, and the sword…and it was way too much from my point of view. The only clothes that I had representing the majismo trend were the mantilla veil and the red cloth on the hip. I went back to check my references of majismo, and even if they had a looooot of detail, I knew I had to do a flower pattern (similar to the trousers that Rosalía wears in her videoclip “Di mi nombre” and that it is inspired in Francisco de Goya’s paint “La Maja vestida”). So I went that way, but definitely that wasn’t my first option. In fact, in the beginning it was planned to be fully plain, like a horse riding trousers and taking references from the cavalry soldiers. In particular, my favorite brand for this sort of trousers is ZALDI, and for me, there are some simple designs that I consider “classic”, as I have been wearing them since I can remember, since I was a child. So my instinct was to make that same design in La Maja.

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And final decision, as I mentioned, was to change it to a closer look the majismo trend.

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Let’s jump into the boots. A very funny thing happened during the process over here, and thank god I realized in time! I was designing boots with a zip. It might just sound such a normal thing, but the truth is that I’m designing a character living in the beginning of the 18th century and, according to Wikipedia, zips were not invented until the 19th century. The zip that we currently know was invented in the 1913 by Gideon Sundback, born in Sweden but emigrated to Canada. So, I re-made my design and used a shoelace instead, adding half chaps (they are my fav also for riding a horse, very comfy and cool to wear) and a couple of spurs, but the normal ones just for a better contact with the animal, not the cowboy with the spiky stars. They hurt . And, back to the fact that I needed to make it look more spanish, I had to use the leather straps that are sooo traditional in Doma Vaquera, what is called as a discipline and culture here in Spain. Quoting an article to explain it better, it means the following:

“Doma” means “dressage” in Spanish, and “vaquera” means “western.” So doma vaquera can be loosely translated as a Spanish version of Western dressage, similar to the American Western riding that originated from the fieldwork in an open space around cattle.

The foundation for doma vaquera is classical dressage. Doma vaquera horses show everything that dressage horses show: shoulder-in, half pass, pirouettes, flying changes, collected canter. However, everything is performed with more speed and impulsion than in competitive dressage. Horses are expected to break into explosive gallops from the halt and do extremely quick stops, rollbacks (half turn on the haunches) and pirouettes. If dressage is ballet for horses, doma vaquera is flamenco!

In Spain, doma vaquera is also connected with the art of bullfighting. Both the work in the bullfighting arena and with cattle requires speed, quickness, agility and a high degree of collection from the horse. Unlike in dressage riding, where riders ride with one (snaffle bridle) or two reins (double bridle) in each hand, doma vaquera requires the rider to hold the reins in one hand, typically the left. The right hand must be free for work, such as holding the garrocha, a long pole designed to distract the bull. The discipline of bullfighting from a horse is called rejoneo. The horse for rejoneo is a doma vaquera horse that performs movements such as piaffe, passage, terre-a-terre, jambette, pirouette on three legs, etc.

As I have researched, this discipline was official in the 19th century BUT it existed already since the 15th century in Spain. In fact, my first contact with horses was through this discipline, as my family was also educated and grew with it as our culture and like being part of us. I do admire which is the dressage bit and I find beautiful all the horse equipment designs, but I reject the part related to the bullfighting issue, so I don’t practice this discipline and I do another instead, which is non-harming at all 😊.

Back to the boots, I used the leather straps that you can find in the Spanish bridle as an accessory, and also, added this detail from the soldier hat, so I would not loose that feel of the Spanish independence war. Also I substitute that kind of feather that some hats had, and attached a rose, which is a flower that has also a lot of history in Spain, within legends, famous characters, etc. Of course, again representing majismo with this.

At some point, I thought about adding roses on the trousers. It would have looked like this:

I discarded this quite soon after a few tries.

As for the jacket and the X cross belts, most of it is the soldier uniform, but I included again a flower pattern to make it look, again, a mix with the majismo trend. Added a jewel in the X center, to make the aesthetic match with the earrings and the mantilla cannon wheel too. Shoulder pads were adapted again to the Spanish bridle and leather straps…but trying to distinguish them a bit from the boots, and these would look more like fur.

I guess those are the most relevant things that I had to explain, as maybe it was not clear for everyone taking just a first glance.

And...surprise revealed. She is coming with a creature. Of course, IT HAD TO BE A BULL! Changing a horse for a bull on this occasion was a clear decision for me from the start (also a challenge), because obviously I’ll magnify him. In English I know it is only called fighting bull, but the real name of the breed is “Toro de Lidia”. I love these animals and, sadly, hate the bullfighting tradition. They are not dangerous at all. In the contrary, they are as noble as horses. A bull is a Spanish iconic, and I think that all what it represents and its tragic life (due to humans and its tradition), matches perfectly with my character of La Maja (led to war, also provoked by humans). She can’t ask for a better partner to go to war.

I only have two thumbnails yet to check the proportions between both characters, but I’ll develop it soon.

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Sketches for the back view. I've had my doubts about which of those two I should have chosen, but I believe I made the right decision. The outfit will look clear on that pose, hopefully.

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Hello again! My last two weeks have been madness, and I'm trying my best to finish my entry to meet the deadline! The back view is still in process, but I decided that even if that it's not fully finished, I had to keep on with my illustration. Otherwise I'm sure I will feel overwhelmed in the end by it.

I have recorded myself while drawing a set of 9 thumbnails to work in composition. Of course, don't expect any details. In fact, I have used some bits of images that could help me quicker (by doing photobashing) to see what works better. After some discussion with close ones, I have decided that number 3 will be the chosen one, although I want to fix a bit more the space between elements. I have doubted in between 2, 3, 4 and 9. What do you think? Do you agree with carrying on number 3?

Song: Bagdad by Rosalia (to keep the right direction ) . Piano version.

Thanks for watching!

Definitely, I will work more in the background number 3 has been the chosen one in the end!

Time is passing by so quickly...I hope I can submit everything in time for the deadline! Leaving here a 3/4 view of my character, as I need it to develop a design for the final illustration.

Hi! Well, no time for much more. Only a week left for the deadline. Doing my best to finish everything by then. Back view is finally done. My final Illustration is almost there.