She Sings From Somewhere You Can’t See

So the theme for this week’s Character of the Week at ConceptArt.org is The City. You’re supposed to envision a city personified: This week we want you to take a city, anywhere in the world, your own, or another, and visualise it as a character. Present a city as a human personality, male or female it’s up to you. If possible try to avoid national costumes, and instead imagine how the city would look as a person.

Anyone who knows me knows it took me half a second to say, “Hey, I’m gonna do San Francisco!”

Ideas for this piece:

My first sketch of San Francisco, doodled yesterday. I wanted to evoke a sorta techno-pagan feel to the city, and evoke the past of the city, the activism and the culture, as well as stress the technology. I’ve got some notes on how I want to do this, since not all of it is in the sketch.

Past: Gold dust streaming from her braids. Stylised railroad tracks circling a drum. (Each of the three drums will probably have a sort of theme.)

Culture: The drums themselves (if you’ve ever spent a summer’s afternoon in Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, you’d know why.) I’m pondering a sort of meditative posture instead of this floating one….something like a partial lotus position. You can’t see it in this sketch because the scan faded out too much but she has three masks tied to her wrist, as well as various talismans representing the city’s history.

Technology: She’s wearing googles (kinda steampunky) has some techy tattoos, and one of the drums will probably reflect this theme as well.

Clothes: Some trailing bits which turn into fog.