FMP - Further Sketching

In today's session I drew up my designs for my fictional empire's palaces and Sultana portraits. The first one that I drew which was of the the large palace was based upon multiple existing eastern palaces and architectural designs. The biggest influence for this one however was the Taj Mahal, which you can tell by the large dome and general shape of the palace, in India as it is considered to be a wonder of the modern world. however another notable architectural inspiration was the Blue Mosque in turkey,which you can see in the rounded roofs and additional towers design, which was designed by one of my artistic inspiration, Mimar Sinan, who also did work on the Taj Mahal. What I like about the palace is the way it captures the idealised look of Eastern Culture, since its a mix of Indian, Arabian, Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese design, but yet still feels somewhat unique thanks to my own personal and western interpretation of these elements. However I wish I could have sketched in a more unique way as its design at the moment is a bit bland.

The second part of this particular sketching stage was to create a series of drawings that related to the look of my Sultana dynasty but still mixes in those other themes that I have explored in my research. I have created four so far and have two left to make for my little collection of images to be complete and so far I have created a a print of the first Sultana, a portrait of the second Sultana, a historical moment of the third Sultana, and finally a sketch of the fourth Sultana's assassination. The first one was based upon 16th century ink sketches prints of famous historical people, the second one was based upon on portraits of saints and royalty and will be coloured in to be more aesthetically pleasing, The third one was based upon wood-cut prints and their simplified nature, and finally the fourth one was somewhat inspired by the painting of Jean-Paul Marat as this Sultana was become a martyr of Onlum's because of her brutal assassination. These sketches have been interesting so far as they allowed me to develop a significant style for the rest of my work with major credit going to the second one as it really accumulates the sort of style I wanted to achieve for my artistic practices.