Weekly Roundup - 11 Apr 2016

This week's update comes a little later than usual, as I didn't want to reveal a commission I'd completed, and possibly spoil it for my customer, who got it as a present for her boyfriend! Anyway, last week's work consists of two big projects and one smaller.

First up is the Batman V Superman portraits of the holy trinity - Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman. I finally got a frame for it, as well as some appropriate backing card to mount it on.

The coloured backing card definitely enhances the picture and makes the characters stand out I think. It's a shame there is no space visible behind Wonder Woman, or I would have used gold or yellow there!

The project that has taken up most of my time this week is a commission of Star Lord, the main character from Guardians of The Galaxy. Here is the picture my customer wanted beaded, next to the design I was able to create for it:

As you can see, the bead design looks a lot more messy than the original image, simply because the image is quite detailed in places, which can be hard to express when using 5mm beads for pixels! My customer didn't want the picture to be too big, so I thought 50x50cm was as big as I could reasonably go, while also being the minimum size to give enough detail. I found myself using the design mostly for guidance on the outlines, and used the original image to fill in a lot of the detail by eye, "cleaning up" the design as I went.

Here are some progress shots taken at different stages:

​I used fewer colours than my computer design suggested, in an attempt to keep the picture as simple as the original image. It took nearly 5 hours to bead and iron, and now looks pretty badass framed and mounted:

The owner certainly seems happy with it!

The smaller project I've just started work on is a commission for someone who was at the London Gaming Market last week, but missed the chance to buy the art she wanted. I guess she hesitated too long to think about it, because when she came back to my stall to buy it, it had already sold about half an hour earlier. Anyway, she got in touch and will soon have her own Guybrush Threepwood from Monkey Island, he just needs a frame!