Cruel Summer

IF (Illustration Friday) 6/20/14, the topic was Summer.  For this particular topic, I chose to personify Summer by portraying the season as an individual, which also gave me the excuse to pay homage to one of my most influential and favorite illustrators, Alphonse Mucha.  I had been toying with the idea for some time to create a series of the seasons similar to Mucha's original incarnations while infusing them with my own vision.  This piece was a labor of love, but a harsh one, and it took WAY longer than anticipated to complete. There are a few details that I'd like to alter, add, or change, but ultimately, I'm happy with how it turned it.  While the initial concept was executed quickly (sketch and outline), the color phase really held me up.  I had a difficult time choosing a scheme that worked with the theme of the piece, and still offered enough contrast so that the original work wasn't lost.  The piece is entirely digital, done in Painter, with some manipulations done in Photoshop.