I am really slow with this series (but I do want to finish it), because I still think they have a lot in common. Especially these two. Because you can totally see Tala and Chirrut egging each other, and of course, helping their friends in their own way.
So… we’re in the final post of the year. First year I told myself I was going to be constant with my posting on social media, and I re-started my own site and brand as Calico Chimera. It’s been a bumpy ride, to be honest, but I am happy with the results, especially as well, it’s the first time I am able to fill one of these Art Summaries with one image per month (and choosing some months was HARD), and I’m really happy with the results.
(BTW, the blank template is from DustBunnyThumper at Deviantart. Credit where Credit is due)
I did notice that I forgot to post some of the images here. Sure, I decided that Deviant Art would be mostly for fanart, and everywhere else for everything, but I never posted the Horsemen and Squires in Art Noveau borders here! That was a big overlook! (So I guess I will post them in 2018, just for competition sake). Also, I have to balance more my finished color original pieces and the fanart since this year it looks as I did more fanart (But of course, that doesn’t count comic pages, or sketches)
Most of this comes, of course, thanks to the amazing support I’ve had this year. And since this is the last post of the year, I can’t let it go without thanking Mandi Gordon, Writer’s Block writer and Dream Keeper Robin’s editor. Half of the illustrations here wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t supported me, pushed me to my limits, and kept pushing me from under my drawing table.
In any case, thank you for reading this, thank you for being with me and supporting me through 2017. Here’s to 2018 where I hope we all have a much better year!
And here we finish the Wonder Princess saga (For now) with my favorite. Mulan.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: Moana is amazing and currently my #2. Rapunzel is really cool. Merida is great. But the very first princess that said “EFF this” to the whole “Damisel in distress/finding true love” was Mulan, and omg, I loved her from the very first second.
And well, she gets my favorite suit for Diana ever. The gorgeous Diana Trevor armor that Diana wears during the trial of the Gods arc, designed by George Perez. An arc that finally explains why Diana’s suit is based around the stars and bars.
And well, with this one being the last, I’ve got to ask: Would you like to see them ALL together in just one image?
Another honesty moment: I don’t like Pocahontas. It’s my third least liked Disney Movie, one that I haven’t been able to watch complete (I have to stop around Colors of the Wind. Beautiful song… the context makes me ugh). Mostly because it’s based on a real story of a real girl who definitively didn’t go the way Disney says, and then because it’s kinda… whitewashing all the horrors that native americans went through.
That said: Her character design is GORGEOUS. Sure, the clothes need a bit of work to avoid the sexy savage trope, but her face, her hair, her movement… everything looks so beautiful. If she was in a completely different story, I would love her to pieces.
Of course, I couldn’t put her in the american flag colors. Call me old fashioned but… I feel that’s kind of disrespectful to what Native Americans go through even to this day. So thinking about how to include her in the Wonder Princess line up without putting her in red, white and blue, I remembered Maria Mendoza.
Created by Stan Lee for the Just Imagine Stan Lee creating the DC Universe, Maria Mendoza is a different Wonder Woman from Diana. She’s a native from Peru, she’s an activist against the people who want to destroy her Incan roots, and with the help of the staff of Manco Capac, she gets the powers of the Incan Sun God. Tell me that’s not really cool?
And of course, as her suit doesn’t involve the american flag… She was perfect for Pocahontas.
I’m going to be frank here: I only watched Princess and the Frog in Netflix about seven months ago. When it was in the theaters it didn’t call my attention (I am not a fan of the original tale of the spoiled princess and the dead frog) so I just let it pass. Man, was I wrong. After I watched it, Tiana became one of my top five favorite princess, hands down. She’s perfect in every way, and the only thing I am not happy with is that she spends about 90% of the movie as a frog (Also, Alan Tudyk made me cry, but that’s for a different post).
On the other hand, I adore the DC Bombshells. Every single issue is perfect, and all the stuff changed is great. I am pretty sure that no one at DC editorial reads DC Bombshells because there’s no way they would let a comic so perfect to keep on, with all the lesbian and bisexual heroines that are so cool. Diana in particular is amazing. And her suit is my favorite WW alternative uniform, so of course I had to give it to Tiana.
We’re almost done with the Wonder Princesses, so I hope you have enjoyed this ride.
Choosing Jasmine’s outfit was hard. I had already used the one with a bare mid-drift, and while there are a ton of other elseworlds outfits, none really fit the princess who wanted a bit more than just being trapped in a palace while being forced to marry a prince because that’s what the rules said.
Diana’s Amazonia’s outfit was chosen by accident, but as I reread that particular elseworld -which I don’t really recommend. I find it to be a bit of a waste of a lot of great ideas- I found out that they do have some bits in common. Especially the point about how women have to submit to a lot of rules that society doesn’t impose on men. Unfortunately, Amazonia doesn’t have many male characters that one would actually like, so that’s where the parallels end. Aladdin has some great male characters, and a villain you don’t want to be shot to the moon in the third page of the script.
Copic markers, glitter pen, and copic sketch paper.
It took me a while to watch Tangled. Mostly due to the fact that most of the people who talked about it before it premiered made it look as if Flynn was the focus of the story, and I wasn’t a big fan of the original tale. I was a fool, because Rapunzel is amazing, and Maximus is incredible, and yes, I also like Flynn.
To be honest, my only complain about the movie is that I didn’t like the songs that much.
Anyway, after a lot of thought, I gave her the Post-crisis, George Perez-desinged Wonder woman outfit. Because, well, let’s be honest, that was when Diana’s hair went from longish to REALLY long (Not as long as Starfire, but still, long). It is not THAT different from the pre-crisis one (The one I used for Belle), but it still has some new details.
Made with copic markers, glitterpen and in copic sketch paper.
I honestly don’t have much to say about Belle. Beauty and the Beast is not one of my top 10 fave Disney Movies, despite the fact that Tale as Old as Time IS one of my favorite Disney songs because its sung by Angela Langsbury who is easily one of my favorite actresses ever. But Belle is… well, Belle. She’s some of my friends’ favorite, and I do identify with her love of reading (If someone offered me that frigging library? I’d marry them on the spot, even if they had horns), but other than that… she’s just Belle.
The suit she’s wearing is, at the same time, one of the least recognized outfits Diana had. Because a lot of people confuse it with her Post-Crisis, George Perez’ designed outfit. But no, this one is the last Pre-Crisis outfit she wore, the first time the eagle changed into a W because, in the words of the woman who handed it to her in comic “W stands for Woman. Because you represent all Women”.
Kinda heavy to put her with that much weight, IMHO, but it was a powerful scene at the time.
You will see the differences with the Post-crisis uniform in the next Princess. They’re not that big, but once you know they’re there, you can’t not see them.
Merida is adorable. Her strength and her decision not to let anyone dictate her destiny are great too, but at first, I can’t but see her, and remember the scene of her dad pretending to be her to let Elinor practice what to tell her. And I smile. Because the whole family is adorable, even before the twins get turned into bears.
She’s wearing the Artemis’s Wonder Woman suit, which is basically the suit Diana was wearing before Artemis -the amazon, not the goddess- and the Bahna Migdall asked for a new contest to make sure Diana was still worthy (as the Bahna Migdall had not been allowed to participate in the original one and Diana had had some mistakes in her career.. Comics are complicated sometimes), with very few additions. She’s wearing Hermes’s sandals, as she had no powers and couldn’t fly, and Atlas’ bracelets to have super strength. She also favored her bow and arrows over the Lasso of Truth, so of course, she was a good fit for Merida. Oh, there was also the fact that she was destined to die in Diana’s place (as I said, comics are complicated) and while she did die, she also said f**k this to death and managed to come back and make her own name as a hero.
My relationship with the Little Mermaid is complicated. There are times in which I love it and can sing every single song of the movie plus the ones in the Sebastian Sings CD that of course I had back in the day, there are days in which I want to throttle everyone who says “She gave up herself for a guy, ugh” because they totally miss that Ariel was completely obsessed with the human world before meeting Erick, and there are days in which I wish Disney had never touched it. Still, it’s the one movie where I love every single change made. Because damn it, I hated the original tale because Ariel did not deserve to die just because Hans Christian Andersen had a bone to pick with a ballerina.
AHEM.
In the same vein, I have a complicated relationship with the Post-flashpoint Wonder Woman comics. I am not a fan of the Nu52 silver uniform (which is why, spoilers, it is not in my list of uniforms to use for the princesses), and I hated that they made her Zeus’s daughter and then the Goddess of War for a lot of reasons that maybe I will touch one day when I finish that piece I am making of Diana. Rebirth has fixed some of the problems, but well, you know the saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. So I’m waiting to see if they undo all the Nu52 damage or I have to wait until the next DC reboot.
Still.. I ADORE her new uniform. It’s the right mixture of the original, the new, and the movie one, while being completely her own. I love that now we see clearly where the lasso goes, that is an armor, the boots. Everything.
So of course, I had to give it to Ariel. Who was, in a way, the Rebirth of Disney, for many fans.
