Valentine's Day Hime Lolita

A cold has been kicking my butt lately, making me want to do nothing but sleep all day (boooo...) - so I just have a couple snapshots to share on this post. A friend who is co-hosting the Portland Lolita Tea and Cake Society's Valentine's Day event asked me to donate an illustration as a raffle prize. She requested it to be hime (princess) and, of course, Valentine's themed.

I started by gathering several different inspiration images of hime lolita fashion. In a nutshell, hime fashion focuses on big hair, lots of ruffles and crowns - merging lolita fashion with what you would imagine is a typical princess outfit. For a more in-depth explanation of hime lolita, check out this link on HelloLace.

Below are my initial sketches. I like to start by drawing out the body, unclothed, in red prismacolor pencil to make sure all my anatomy is correct before overlaying the clothes. For this one I paid special attention to the hands, as they will be the focal point of the piece.

initial anatomy layout

refining details and starting to plot out the dress