Love Is In The Air

I'm working on an illustration project for a bride-to-be. Not surprisingly, the piece is for her wedding invitation, and she specifically requested that she and her fiance be sitting atop the LOVE sculpture in Philadelphia, in their wedding attire. I certainly didn't mind such a specific request - it makes life easy, to be honest.

This is the final approved sketch - she had only change request after seeing the initial version. Her fiance's hand was grabbing her arm, and it came off looking a little rough. This slight modification actually brings it closer to a traditional wedding portrait pose - but go ahead and try to take your wedding photos on the LOVE sculpture. No, don't. You'll be arrested. I was just kidding.

full sketch:

The final vectorized piece of art will be posted here in a week or so, as soon as I can pull all those Bezier curves (designer/illustrator joke).

UPDATE:
I've made progress on the illustration, starting with the bride herself. Once I've finished rendering her and the groom, I'll show it to her to lock down the style before completing the illustration. Luckily, she provided me with three very consistent style samples before the project began, and this is the style she requested - flat colors (no gradients) and no outlines. This style usually goes faster (rendering outlines adds a lot of time to the rendering process) but it usually takes longer to tweak the colors, since the absence of outlines causes the shapes to intersect with each other. I don't want the colors to fight. That would be bad.


No, that's not some weird ram's horn or telephone in her right hand - it's an incomplete bouquet. Flowers will come next. Bouquets are nothing without flowers, I've learned.

UPDATE 2:
Received approval and positive feedback on the above portion of the bride, and moved forward. I've nearly fully rendered the groom, and gave the bride a few tweaks. Still not sure about that big piece of hair on the the side of her face. I'm working to keep the colors in the pinkish-magenta realm, so everything is harmonious.


UPDATE 3:
More progress on the background, and I'm getting happier with the color scheme. Trees and other landscaping next. I've kept the buildings loose and jazzy - straight lines but imperfect angles and alignment, to keep things loose and humanistic.