My ISCA con studio piece...the British Royal Family

Last November (yes, I really do have a backlog of stuff to catch up on blog-wise) I was considering what subject to do for my entry in the annual ISCA convention's studio caricature competition. In the news was Prince Harry's latest peccadillo...being photographed naked in his hotel suite with some ladies, in Las Vegas (who woulda thunk it???). Anyway, I thought it would be funny to do him as a paper doll, whose clothes would not be included...and with the famous Vegas sign covering his nether regions. Then his sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge was photographed topless, and I thought, ooooooh...how nice for me, now I get to draw her too, but that meant I might as well do the whole Royal Family as paper dolls, since it was also the Queen's Jubilee! The idea of depicting the Queen in an old-lady slip with her tiara and giant purse really tickled me. ;-)
Airbrush was my choice of medium for this project, which meant they were drawn in pencil and marker, then painted with my trusty Iwata.  This part was done in between customers at my boardwalk stand in August. When I got home, I scanned them into Photoshop for some painted touch-ups, then had FedEx Office print them on a glossy cardboard. The clothes (which were lots of fun to design) were printed on magnetic paper so they would stay on the paper dolls without tabs (I later affixed magnets to the dolls' backs.) Here is one stage of their creation...on the carpet in my studio, my first test printing:

Once I had them printed and cut out, it was time for a pretty backing paper. A royal blue glittery scrapbooking paper seemed just right. This part was done between customers at my booth at the Irish Festival!

Once at the convention, I still had work to do... constructing a little Buckingham Palace backdrop for them out of more scrapbooking stuff, adding stick-on rhinestones wherever appropriate*, and making stands for the dolls. I'd bought some black-and-white checkered packaging tape that suited my purposes very well (especially since it reminded me of the floors in Westminster Abbey which I'd visited earlier that year...). Finally I added a little "please dress us!"sign.

The display was organized at first...then people started to play with them! yay!

Someone put Prince William in drag...... :-D

Prince Phillip had been in very poor health for most of last year...if he had passed away after I made his paper doll I was going to put a "discontinued" sign on him!

The ISCA convention attracts some of the best caricature artists in the world and there were many, many entries in this category that were amazing. Imagine my surprise when my name was called for second place for best studio caricature!!

Thanks to Celestia Ward for the video!

First place was taken by Brian Oakes for a fantastic watercolor painting of Marky Mark...third place was won by Karel Opdebeeck for a massive sculpture of his brother Jan Opdebeeck (they are a family of amazingly talented artists).

My award was a painted scroll by master calligrapher (and friend) Jeff Redford. I am just as happy about having his handwork as I am about winning an award. :-)

Now what will I create for this year?????

*Kate got a rhinestone pasty.