Modernizing Fantasy: Full Steam Ahead!

I know that i have not written a blog entry in a while and I have to blame my "addiction" to video games and movies for that. I mean, Gears of War 3, then Assassins Creed Revelations, with a little bit of Ico/Shadow of the Colossus in between, before tackling Batman: Arkham City.  And there are a lot of video games I do want to play. Thank God I didn't start playing Skyrim because then i would have not be writing this blog entry. Not to mention watching The Immortals, The Muppets, and a lot of replaying Super 8.

Anyways, I had been planning a shoot with a really good friend of mine for a while. It would be part of my Modernizing Fantasy Collection and the idea came to me while doing the Dryad. I had one word for the theme and a rough sketch of what I wanted, the word was "Valkyrie". And then I started to do some test on wings, and clothes, and fabrics, and background. This was interrupted by the video games and the movies (seriously I have watched Super 8 like 25 times as of this writing). But then I came back on track when I finally did the shoot for it. My friend, she is a natural model and she doesn't even know it. After 5 frames I already had what i needed, but went and took different poses just in case.

So I started working on the images immediately, editing the background, adding wings, a lance, skirt, buckle, and just when I thought that I had the image finished I took a break from it. The image looked good, but I always let it rest for a couple of days before I finish it, that way I see it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. And even thought I had finished editing the image, inspiration hits me once again. I usually get new ideas while finishing an image, and most of the time I use those ideas for other shoots. For example when I did the Dryad I thought about putting wings in it, and that is how I came to do the Valkyrie.

Inspiration hit me while watching the movie "The Rocketeer" (a highly underestimated-while-ahead-of-it's-time movie). I thought about doing something Steampunk style, and I thought about doing another shoot with this theme. But in my head all I could see was tackling the Valkyrie in a steampunk way. And it took some time to do it, but here it is. I call it The Flight of the Valkyrie. I hope you like it as much as I do. This is probably the final image, but since I thought the same thing about the Valkyrie I am not sure anymore :). All I know is that I have a special place set aside for the huge print in one of the walls of my office.