"Heartbroken" is a piece I did on commission for the UK alternative fashion brand Iron Fist. 

 

The client provided the concept and mood board of a skeleton covered in flowers and surrounded with butterflies. Since the concept has been done before I wanted to find an angle that would make this version stand out from the rest. In the end I settled on the idea of heartbreak shown in a very dramatic and visceral way, with a large peony representing the heart and the ribs literally bursting open above it. 

The drawing was a lot of fun to do in spite of a tight deadline. Besides the basic concept I was given full freedom to use my own style and mood, so I decided to go for a vaguely tattoo-inspired approach and to include moths, which are used less often than butterflies. 

 

I did the skeleton first, because that was the technical repetitive part of the drawing. Once all the bones were in place I started adding the flora, and then moths. I did an extremely rough sketch just to give myself an idea of where I wanted things to go, and after that I pretty much went straight to the final version. 

 

I did four or five different colorways after the original, and this one is probably my favorite of the lot. There's something deliciously dissonant about it. 

DETAILS

 

I loved trying to make each moth look both authentic and stylized. I kept them all relatively harmonious with each other but each is unique in design. Stark shadows helped give the piece extra definition and drama.