Art Projects: FINISHED! L's Blue Oyster Cult Jacket

Hello, my friends! Here's a little Art Interlude for you while I continue my lazy staycation and plan of doing Not Much Of Anything for the next week.

I last shared an update on L's Blue Oyster Cult jacket back here in February, but I have worked on it since then. I just haven't shared because L reads my blog (hello, my love!) and I wanted to surprise him for his birthday.

I won't keep y'all in suspense, here's the finished front:

Wow, that's a lot! The whole front is done, including some unplanned colour (FLAMES).

And the back - no real change, although you can see a bit of the collar detail, and how I've given the stars on the sleeve a silver edge.

I ended up scaling back much of what I'd originally planned, both to save myself time, and to no overwhelm some of the simpler areas, like this backpatch which is just fine as is. 

Okay, now backing up to where we were last, when I got the basics of the two front upper chest round "patches" based in. 

I coloured the BOC in blue, and then thought, "This needs some more grandiosity," and had the inspiration to do an outer border that replicates the original Miami Dolphins "sun" logo (link here, 'cause I love). You can see my light grey "sketching" above.

I plotted the bumps carefully to  make sure I got them even, then added another round to really add some oomph.

It gives it more visual weight. 

Me on the deck, working on a hot day.

Got my water and my tunes. The time flies, but I stop when my hand starts to hurt. 

Added more colour, plus some grey shading on the outer ring.

On the next session, I did a darker border around the letters to make them stand out more. 

Off to the other side, which got some Sun flames.

Appropriate, since the quote "I'm the Joker of the Universe" is a lyric from The Great Sun Jester.

I added another song lyric to the collar, "Dice roll so Indifferently." 

I added a pair of D6 (six-sided dice), and a D20 (a 20-sided die). I'm using Dungeons & Dragons lingo there as a nod to the game, which L - and I! - played for decades.

Not shown: The day after we lost Vizzini, I added all three of our cats' names and pawprints to secret places on the jacket, a private message of love to L.

Now, what to do with the front?? I landed on a lyric, "Cities on Flame, with rock and roll," from the song Cities on Flame (enjoy the YouTube link here, crunchy rock).

I used my sketching pen (it disappears when dry) to line up the lyrics on angles (very hard!), then did a light line with a permanent pen. 

Let's get those letters looking good.

I'm getting good at this font! 

I like it to be fairly soft.

I angle all the corners.

Add colour! 

I messed up the O in "on" - oops. I showed that to my brother and he didn't even see it. Eh, let it go.

The scariest part by FAR! I wanted to do shading like flames burning - I found some pics online to help me. I also had lightly outlined some classic tattoo-like flames, which you can just see vertically on the centre panels.

Filling in the base colour yellow (I tested all these colours on the inside band of the jacket to see what worked/showed up best on a blue background). 

And let's add some orange, oh, jeez, feeling panicky. Bring the yellow in closer to the letters! Yes, that helps. 

Trust yourself, Sheila, trust yourself. 

A progress pic with my shadow, ha ha.

Feeling better about the left side, now that I've added a couple of shades of orange and it's starting to look more fiery. 

Adding black.

I also extended the design out on the sides a bit more. Most of the sides are hidden when the jacket is on - you can't see the pockets, for instance - so there's no point in adding things that might rub off from the sleeves. 

I added L's name - it's Logan - to the bare pocket flap.

No question who this belongs to! 

The other side done.

Could I have done more? Probably. Did I want to? No, I'm done. 

The last thing I did was add tiny touches of silver all over. I highlighted the D6 pips and D20's 20 (a nat!).

Added silver dots to the centres of the swirls on the BOC patch, and outlined the BOC symbol on the right.

Just enough to catch your eye, but not detract from the design.

I might go back and darken up the Logan.

A zigzag on the lightning bolt on the sword.

I punched up a bit of the shading, but very tiny updates. 

I outlined the stars on the other sleeve.

This sleeve also has a tiny private message where my thumb is.

The pic of the front was blurry, but here's L wearing it. 

"The best birthday present I've ever received!"

Aw! I'm glad you like it. I've added this to my Art Projects tab (here).

On to the next art project...another pair of shoes!