Nicki Minaj Portrait

 Haven't done one of these in a while. 

Too busy not just with work but with a different nature of work. However that did stop my brother from all but threatening my life last week. Apparently he was off to meet miss Minaj at her first Toronto show date by wa of a little back stage meet and greet. I figured of all the reasons to do one of these, the celeb in question seeing the work in person would be one of them. It's been a lot of months since I went through the process and that's never good with any skill task. I literally had to sit down and watch some of my old videos to re-learn the procedure and of course try to improve upon it. What I did learn is that I must have been an idiot savant because it used to be so easy whereas  it's mostly painstaking now. Moreover, low angles are never fun because the proportions and likeness curves are thrown way out of whack. Still there is that split second where I find peace(of mind) because it comes together and all that stress was for not.

I let the dude decide which hair style to give her, I deferred to his opinion for most of the decisions and I was probably done in half the time because of it. I think I'll give Nicki another go just to really capture her crazy stare with funky hair. 

The focal point in this piece is the lips I think. Similar to my Tupac I give them the that extra "i don't know what" 

Lighting gave way to flesh tone on this one, mainly because my brother wanted to "play it safe." Coloured folk have the hardest skin tone to nail perfect but at the same time you can get away with a wider range of tones. I remember my painting professor would always get on me to add purple. I never really cared for the approach but in this instance the lighting really re-enforced it.

My brother bought a new slr a little while ago so I'm slowly finding more and more ways to incorporate it in my my work.  When I learn to speed up the process I may even do one of these vids live.

Time Lapse speed painting featuring Minaj and done with pastel.

I might do a few more in the coming months, stay tuned.

-King