Cupid and Psyche
This was an illustration that came out of SmART School during my time at Cynthia Sheppard's course, Illustrating the Emotional Narrative. I never got to share it on here! It was such a pleasure learning from one of the artists I look up to. If you're ever considering a course at SmART School, I highly recommend Cynthia's Class! Forever grateful for her.
Thank you for taking the time to read the process of one of my favourite pieces, a painting I hold so close to my heart.
Final Illustration of Cupid and Psyche
For this project, I wanted to capture the scene where Psyche first sees Cupid in the light, effectively breaking her promise and his trust. I wanted to depict a feeling of tension and the anxiety of the unknown.
In these set of thumbnails, I was exploring how I wanted to place the viewer. I was debating whether I wanted the piece to focus on Psyche's expression or on the sleeping Cupid.
I also explored a horizontal composition, to showcase Cupid's wings. I decided that I preferred the vertical composition better.
Eventually, I ended up with thumb #2, as I feel like the action of Psyche "uncovering" Cupid sleeping under his wing parallels the moment of the story as she's seeing him for the first time, "uncovering" who he really is.
From there, I explored more potential thumbnails that could come out of the initial idea, coming closer to a tighter sketch. At this point, I was still considering if seeing Psyche's face is at all important.
Now that I have the initial thumbnail sketches and a clear direction of where I want to take the illustration, I started gathering references. Knowing that Cupid and Psyche is a Greek story, I focused my search there!
In Blender, I set up a very primitive block out of the scene, just to get the necessary lighting information and how the light falls on the forms.
During this course, I found a great appreciation for taking your own photos to further find the lighting information I need for my illustrations.