Latina Icons
Passion Project, Digital Illustrations
I have always enjoyed drawing in many different styles. The majority of my drawing however, has often been with pencil and paper. I wanted to experiment with digital illustrations and began this series. The Latina Icons series is a series of digital portrait illustrations of my favorite Latina Icons. I began my illustrating the famous Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. I then illustrated the famous Mexican artist Frida Khalo. I hope to eventually draw Rita Moreno, a Puerto Rican actress and Celia Cruz, a Cuban singer.
Process
For both illustrations I used a photo for reference, I would begin by converting each image into grayscale and then increasing any shadows or highlights that already existed in the photo. By doing so I was able to get a good understanding of the main shadows and highlights and with this build the basic structure of the face. I would then look at the original colored image to understand how the more specific details of the face were shaped and fit together.
Final Illustrations & Reflection
The final result is these two stylized portraits of Selena and Frida Khalo. Overall, I was very pleased with these digital illustrations. Along with demonstrating my illustration ability they show off my attention to detail. When it comes to more stylized portraits, especially when it comes to humans, attention to detail is important to ensure the portrait doesn't look wrong or stiff simply because some details were removed due to the stylized nature of the portraits. Therefore when creating these stylized portraits I made sure to look closely and understand what parts of the face might require more details than others to prevent the faces from appearing overly stiff and unalive
