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Queen Bee


I "fake-joined" the "Bird Bee Butterfly" Swap at Craftster, which simply means that, while you still have to follow the rules for said event, instead of actually exchanging the item(s) that you made with another member, you're creating them for yourself. The object of said swap was to create three items, one focusing on each of the three critter types named in the swap's title.

For my bee project, I decided to paint/draw a "Queen Bee" enemy monster from Vic Tokai's 1995 Super Famicom ("Family + Computer", the original Japanese name for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System) video game Princess Minerva [other versions are also available on the PC-98 computer (1992) and PC Engine CD console (1994); however, none of said variations were ever released outside of Japan].

The titular character, Minerva, not content with the "normal" boring life of a princess, sets out on an epic adventure, with her entourage of eight friends in tow, to save the land from the forces of evil. Princess Minerva is equal parts pro-feminist and cheesecake, as the vast majority of the characters in the game are female, including all nine of the protagonists you control, as well as most of the "monsters" you fight, but they also tend to be scantily-clad or topless/naked.


In the screenshot above, "Kui-n Bi-" is the Japanese katakana phonetic equivalent of the English "Queen Bee", and the player characters surrounded by the quartet of Queen Bees are three of Princess Minerva's comrades, Blue Morris (center), Tyrolia (left), and Elan (right) ["Buru- Morisu", "Chiroria", and "Eran", in Japanese katakana, respectively].



I was going to make a 3-dimensional figurine of the Queen Bee, but I ran out of time (and ambition), so, I just painted/drew her instead, using a photograph of a real woman, from an issue of Vogue, as my still-life reference model (obviously, I added the wings, stinger, etc., as she certainly didn't have those!) The actual illustration faces left, but I decided I liked the Queen Bee better facing right, so I horizontally mirrored the image in an art program.

It's good to bee queen!


Materials:
Acrylic paint, graphite/colored pencil, and ink, on white paper.

Dimensions:
10.0 cm (3.9") wide x 17.0 cm (6.7") tall.

Time:
One morning on July 10th, 2017.
(A day past my deadline--don't tell anybody!)


This isn't really relevant, but, I'll stick it here anyway. It's just a quick portrait of a woman, that I did completely in permanent marker, which was the last thing that I drew prior to the Queen Bee:




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