My entries for Manos' "Real Life Recreations" contest!

LAST UPDATED 29/06/07.

Warning: may take a while to load as I add more pics!

(Sorry if you hate the formatting, it's an old style sheet I made ages ago, and it looked better than plain Times New Roman on white...)

1. Lions Are Smarter Than I Am [click here for original; added 24th May 07]





I did this for a product pic, but decided to enter it into this competition anyway, since I can enter as many as I want, so why not? Instead of just copying the design I decided to illustrate the title more fully - so it's not just one geeky toy lion wearing a pair of my old glasses, it's two toy lions in old glasses proving how much smarter than me they are, by understanding A Brief History of Time a lot faster than me. ;)

2. Urban Camouflage [click here for original; added 24th May 07]




I think this one's going to take some more explaining... For our school's commemoration of Shakespeare's birthday (see my product pic for Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poems), my friend Emma dressed up as the Wall from Pyramus and Thisbe, the play-within-a-play performed by the comical rustic characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream (and yes, the wall was played by an actor). Basically, she made a cardboard wall and hung it around her neck for the day. After seeing her costume I had the idea to do a product pic using it somehow, and so on the day I wore Urban Camouflage into school I spent breaktime and spare moments in a lesson drawing all of this A Midsummer Night's Dream-themed graffiti on it. I've tried to keep the style of the original, using a range of text styles as well as some images and a fake poster, as well as only three colours - two black permanent markers, a red felt-tip pen, and a white Tippex pen. None of this was planned or sketched out beforehand, I just went for it.

I don't really expect this to win in the "faithfulness to the design" category, but originally it was only going to be a product pic rather than a contest entry, and hopefully it'll make up a lot of those lost points on creativity. ;)

If you can't read my handwriting, or would like an explanation of all the things written on the wall, here's a list:
- A notice "pinned onto" the wall (actually drawn of course). Text reads: "ROYAL WEDDING. Theseus + Hippolyta. BUY TICKETS NOW!" with red decorations on the outside. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta is the venue for which the play-within-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe, will be performed.
- The famous "chink" in the wall, through which the paramours Pyramus and Thisbe communicate, with a helpful sign saying "LOOK THRU 'ERE". Emma points out that if the writer of this notice writes 'thru' and 'ere', he probably wouldn't put in that apostrophe! She's probably right, but my inner grammarian insisted on it, so let's just say it's ironic or something?
- "ATHENS", the city in which AMSND is set, but using that graffiti staple, the A for anarchy.
- "MOTH", the name of one of the fairies.
- "PYRAMUS <3 THISBE 4EVA", the main idea of the wall. Originally it was just going to have this bit, but after I decided to make it an entry for this contest and not just a product pic, I went to town on adding all the other stuff. I'm especially proud of the Tippex highlights, and the general "graffiti-ness" of the text.
- "D-MAN", meant be a rather dull tag from the rather dull Demetrius.
- "I H8 AEGEUS", a note from Lysander expressing his annoyance with the father of his girlfriend Hermia, who refuses to allow them to get married.
- "I <3 HERMIA HELENA HERMIA!!!" - more from Lysander, whose affections are altered by a magic plant during the course of the play. I doubt he would have passed and written on this same wall in that time, but hey, this whole thing is improbably meta anyway.
- A picture of a fairy, probably a visual tag from Titania (the fairy queen) or one of her attendants.
- "LION WOZ ERE" - after drawing the main Pyramus and Thisbe bit, and the chink in the wall, I was at a bit of a loss, since I'd wanted the wall to look like the prop used by the rustics in their play. So, I thought, there were Pyramus and Thisbe... and there was this chink... and then what else? Hmm, there was a lion, wasn't there? And that's how this came about. Then I decided, screw it, I'll have characters from the main play write on this as well, they could have all written on the prop after watching P&T or something. I'm pretty pleased with the way I did this - black background in permanent marker, and then tippex for the white bits. Being able to go over black with white - it's just like with real spraycans! :D
- A picture of a donkey's head, with "ASS" and an arrow pointing from the text to it. "ASS" has had a line put through it and "no, Bottom!" has been written next to it. This is not only a reference to when the character named Bottom literally has an ass made of him when his head is magically turned into that of a donkey's, but to the comments on this subbed design. The donkey's head was fun to do - I basically sketched it with all the real pens, and then sketched over the ears with the Tippex pen.
- "Puck this!", an obvious pun on the name of the mischievous sprite whose misplaced love potions interfere with and eventually fix the romantic entanglements of the main characters, and the swear-word that rhymes with it.
- "BIG UPS 2 DA WOODLAND CREW", clearly another shout-out from one the fairies.

3. The Soldier Returns [click here for original; added 29th June 07]




I'm REALLY proud of this one! It took a great deal of effort to put together, but I think it was worth it! Here follows a list of stuff I did to bring about this recreation, with pics to illustrate various stages...

The background - A blue sheet taken directly from my bed! Unfortunately the sun was behind so it looks more grey than blue, but in reality it was almost the same colour as the guys' shirt (which I'm wearing under the two striped ones, though it's hard to see).

The crane - wow, what a lot of work this was! It was made of papier maché and painted by me especially for this contest. I used two layers of white emulsion all over it, then a layer of blue emulsion all over the back and wings, as well as under the legs and tail, and sparsely as shading on the neck and head. I then painted over most of the blue with another layer of white, using a small amount of paint on the brush each time to keep it 'dry' and so highlight the shape of the feathers and give the impression of accentuated light and shadow. Here are some pics of that process! (I only remembered to take any once I'd added the blue, sorry!)

I then painted the legs, beak, and rock all in brown. I experimented with two different styles of facial markings for the crane, doing one on each side to see which would be better for the final pic. Next I used black paint to add horizontal lines to the legs to give them a more realistic effect, as well as some distressing to the rock (in a similar style to the white paint on the feathers), and adding black to beak and on the eyes. Finally I added white highlights to the eyes and a 'feathery' effect to the place where the legs met the body. All of this took several days of painting!


Me - I'm wearing two shirts that belong to a very tall friend. Either one by itself would have been indecent, but together they were just about modest! I'm also wearing my very own The Soldier Returns shirt underneath. :) I gave my hair a side-parting, and no, I didn't need any make-up, I always look like that in the morning... :P But seriously, the makeup also took a long time, and I went through a series of stages which you can see below:

First, white coverage to the face and neck. Next, hints of light green throughout, and dark blue around the eyes, on the sides of the neck, and in the hollows of the forehead and cheekbones, to give a more realistic impression of shadow than just stark black and white. I continued using the sponge to add black to the majority of these areas (as well as over my ears - euch!), blending it with the blue to leave some around the edge. To top it all off, I took a small brush and using the black and blue, I painted the lines of teeth over my lips as well as the general darkness around the mouth.

The soldier - this is my brother, wearing my boyfriend's CCF uniform, my Brownie Guides sash (inverted so none of the girly badges are visible!), and a smart pair of shoes. If this picture wins, he'll be getting some of the prize money as a thanks for modelling for me!

The weapons - I'm holding the sword you can see in my ninja photos behind my brother's back, and he's holding a BB gun.

The anchor - This was great fun to do! I took some very thick cardboard and drew the anchor with all its patterns onto it. The cardboard was only just big enough for a proper anchor so I had to keep re-doing it for the optimum fit! Once it was all pencilled in, I drew over the lines with thick black marker, and then spray-painted it silver. I then re-drew all the lines, which were just about visible through the spray-paint - since my thick black marker ran out I had to use a thick blue one and then colour in the lines with a thin black pen! To finish it off, I added the same white highlights as those in the picture with white Tippex.


The flowers - I decided to be a bit creative here and not just make cardboard flowers. These flowers are made of thin pieces of curled wood, and painted a variety of unnatural colours that add to the surreal and macabre feel of the design: brown, ochre, dark green, blue, and black. The design does feature blue and green flowers, so it seemed appropriate, as well as more realistic - I mean, I could have just made cardboard cut-outs of everything, but then where would the fun have been? :) They're also strewn about the scene instead of growing, which I feel works well my interpretation of the skull, as they're almost like flowers around a grave.

The skull - In the original design this is a symbol at the base of the wooden structure on which the soldier and girl are standing. Since I didn't see a way in which I could re-create that without taking up intense carpentry or having a rubbish-looking cardboard cut-out, I decided to ignore the wooden shape and just bring the skull out of it. Since the black oval around the skull looks very much like the hair of the girl, I decided to expand upon that and make it into a more obvious 'mirror' of her appearance. The skull was borrowed from my English teacher (he brings it into school when he teaches Hamlet), and the wig comes from my old Geography teacher (she dressed up as a goth-rocker for a dance contest, haha). I had to promise to return them in immaculate condition!


Well, that's all, folks! (I did Honest Tee but legal reasons mean Threadless doesn't like pics of it hanging around, and while I was going to do Fur Ladies and Unusual Gentleman, there's no time now - but if the Soldier Returns doesn't win it for me, then nothing will!)