Rambling, Writing, and More

My fourth illustration was a solo one of Zelkov. He's not really an archetype that comes up in Art Nouveau a lot (men in general don't come up a lot in Art Nouveau), but you can see that I drew from Beardsley's depiction of John the Baptist from Salome.

Although this one seems pretty simple, it was a struggle. There's still some elements that I'm not sure I was successful on (in all my drawings), but I'm not going to tell you which ones because I don't want you to focus on them :)

This illustration originally had a big ornamental border like Ivy's, but I didn't like it. While botanical motifs work for Ivy, they don't work for Zelkov in this context. When searching for other Art Nouveau motifs, one that does show up occasionally is stars. There's absolutely no precedent for it in canon, but I have connected Zelkov with stars in the past, so I went with that. The two stars in my picture are a reference to Zelkov and Ivy, but also to me. Beardsley often signed his art with an artist mark (you can see it in the lower right of his picture above), and I decided to do the same for this series. I put two stars within the border frame on each of my illustrations. (2ofpentacles, two stars, get it?)

So despite not having a huge role in the fic, I wanted to include a picture of Kagetsu, because I feel like he is a vital part in the happiness and success of Ivy and Zelkov's relationship. Kagetsu is certainly not an archetype that come up a in Art Nouveau. However, Art Nouveau — and Aubrey Beardsley in particular — were heavily influenced by Japanese woodblock printing. So I decided to go back to the source, as it were. This led me down the rabbit hole of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. He was, like, THE samurai artist. If you want a picture of a man wrestling a giant fish, he's your guy. You can see in his art (and other Ukiyo-e artists of course) the balance of intricate detail and blank space that informed Beardsley's work.

The characters in the corner of my drawing are supposed to read "flower moon" which in Japanese would be read as "kagetsu." Which is why I made the patterns on his sleeves... flowers and moons. Unfortunately, I didn't have the wherewithal to draw any of that beautiful patterning that Kuniyoshi uses on the samurais' tattsuke-bakama (pants). To be honest, I would never be able to do it justice in black and white. So I used that same curling, almost-botanical motif that is on Ivy's fascinator (because, as character appropriate as it would be, I didn't really want to do onigiri).

So one thing that Beardsley certainly didn't have in his art (and I would even include Mucha in this) is romance or, even more broadly, love. Gustav Klimt, however, portrayed love so intimately. As you can see, my sixth illustration is based on The Embrace which is a panel from the Stoclet Frieze. It's actually kind of a funny coincidence that there are so many eye-like shapes on the man's robe in The Embrace. I also used those same branching swirl patterns on Ivy's dress in my third illustration and her fingernails in this one (because I did not want them to be black or white, but a secret third thing).

While my illustration is very much about love, I tried to leave some hints that all is not well (flower petals falling, the crying or maybe bleeding eye). In this part, Zelkov is overwhelmed by his vampiric instincts (he's a vampire in this story, remember?) because of the miasma. He goes to Ivy for comfort and ends up drinking way too much of her blood. She accepts this and embraces him.

I went through a lot of different compositions for the seventh illustration before settling on what you see here. I made some callbacks to my third illustration (Hedera) which ended up making this one contain elements of Beardsley's The Climax. It wasn't until I put these two images side by side that I realized I had taken the background shapes and switched the colors.

In my drawing, the flowers represent Ivy. The chains are a recurring theme in the fic. Zelkov thinks of them as his self-control, but it's really more him denying himself love. He does also literally get chained up in this scene. He also literally gets a spear stuck through him and vomits blood (don't worry, he's fiiiine).

Because my story ends with a kiss, I decided to base my final illustration on Peter Behren's The Kiss. In keeping with the rest of the series I made it monotone, but might prefer the color version? (in my "vampire" color palette) because frankly I had a super hard time doing it in four colors when the original is in six. I would say that this one is somehow the most typically Art Nouveau yet also the most in my own style (whatever that is) of all my illustrations in this series.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872 – 1898) was an English illustrator and author. To quote wikipedia, "His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic." Personally, I think it's the juxtaposition of the grotesque with the beautiful that makes his work so compelling. Despite dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25, he was extremely prolific, and his style changed significantly over time. My chief inspiration was his illustrations for Oscar Wilde's Salome, but I drew from others of his works as well.

The book that was an invaluable resource for me on this project was Aubrey Beardsley: The Fin-de-Siecle Magician of Light and Darkness by Hiroshi Unno, and he is not lying. It truly is incredible how Beardsley is able to balance light and dark.

I'll just get into it by putting my illustrations along with the ones that inspired them. It will probably not reflect favorably on mine, but I have to remind myself that I shouldn't think of it as a failure to not measure up to a hugely influential artist who is still remembered more than 100 years after his death.

Actually first let me say (for the people who don't know) that the story my illustrations are for is fanfiction vampire erotica. Personally I don't think Beardsley would mind, and in fact it would be a little tame for him.

Anyway, this first illustration depicts Ivy letting Zelkov drink her blood. Curtains and tassels are common motifs in Beardsley's work, as you can see in his self portrait (that I love) on the right. What I think is successful here with my drawing is the use of the curtain to make it seem like you're peering into a private scene that you shouldn't be watching.

You'll notice that 99% of Beardsley's work is a one color print job (i.e. black and white) while I've added grey tones. I allowed myself that strictly for Zelkov and nothing else.

The composition of my second illustration was influenced by The Peacock Skirt from Salome though with a very different mood and intent. I used a lot of elements from The Peacock Skirt in my depiction of Ivy, as you'll see later. Anyway, my illustration depicts a scene where Zelkov has been overwhelmed by his vampiric instincts which leads him to be much more forward than he ever would be otherwise. Ivy is supposed to look very pure and virginal in her white negligee, yet it slips down as she is caught between what she wants (sex) and what she thinks she should want (no sex).

I used the same sort of pointillistic technic that Beardsley does for sheer fabric or lace as you can see in his illustration below. I wish Tumblr let you see the images at higher resolution, because there are so many details. I've included a close up of Zelkov and Ivy's faces because it was very important to me that his expression not be lustful, but in love (or "dazed infatuation" as I say in the fic). Ivy's expression is supposed to be unsure but longing, not fearful. You tell me whether I was successful or not. And yes, Ivy's hair is wrapped around the ring finger on both their left hands.

In the previous pictures we only see Ivy in her nightgown, so I wanted to do one where she's in full princess mode. My third illustration (below) probably draws from the most sources. You can see strong influences of The Peacock Skirt again, but while Beardsley was my main influence in this series, I did pull from other artists as well. That includes Mr. Art Nouveau himself, Alphonse Mucha. The way Beardsley poses his subjects is more stylized. Beardsley also, as stated above, tends to draw people who are grotesque, either in appearance or character. I wanted Ivy to look pretty, and nobody draws a pretty woman like Mucha. I used Autumn as a reference here (I'm sorry for the crappy photo but too many people are trying to make money off of Mucha's corpse for me to find a decent version on the internet).

Beardsley also did a lot of black borders with botanical motifs, notably in his illustrations for Le Morte d'Arthur and that fit Ivy in my opinion. You can also see how I pulled inspiration from The Climax (which was Beardsley's fanart of Oscar Wilde's play Salome that ended up getting him the job of illustrating it). In my picture, rather than John the Baptist's head, Ivy is holding out a pomegranate (her heart, forbidden fruit, etc.) that is dripping a quite large amount of blood juice into a pool at her feet.

Whoops, still talking about the Hedera picture. I saw that lil guy on the left (below) from Beardsley's January 1896 cover of The Savoy, and I was like "That veil is so Ivy." And I'm including here a detail from my version so you can see how this picture drove me insane. All those dots were hand done. Also, I didn't want her dress to be black or white, and greys are reserved for Zelkov, so I covered the entire dress in tiny spirals.

When talking about inspirations for this project, it feels like I should really mention Mika Pikazo, the artist who designed these characters in the first place. It's her ideas that I'm translating. And if you somehow got lost and ended up here in a non-Fire Emblem way, this down below is Princess Ivy and Zelkov from Fire Emblem Engage. The design direction on this game was... polarizing, shall we say? There are certain things that I don't like about the designs (except Zelkov, he's perfect <3), but I'd rather they be bold than boring.

Even if you are familiar with them, maybe you can see how I interpreted certain elements of their designs. Unfortunately, outside of concept art, there is no official full body art of Zelkov, so I've included one of my own drawings that I can guarantee to be accurate in the details of his design, though not in the artstyle of the game.

I use the semi-organic motifs on Ivy's fascinator in several of my illustrations in this series, including on her dress in the Hedera picture. The eye pattern on Zelkov's coat comes up multiple times. There is no in-game explanation for the eyes (or his keys, or really any other design elements) but in this series the eyes came to represent something like his guilt and inner horror at what he's doing.

If you're like "You put that much thought and symbolism into pictures for a smutty fanfic of a game that even its fans compare the plot to a Saturday morning cartoon?" I would say "Yeah..." I can't help it. For me the curtains are never just blue. Sometimes it makes me feel like a crazy person having interests that are so disparate, but I just wanted to smash together some things that I like.