Aethelflaed’s Dress – going round again!

Just so we know where we stand…

Before I went through the reboot, I’d the back panel stitched and some dark lines in place – shadows and stitch lines. It’s not right at all. It looks unthought-through, and the drapery isn’t draping in a way that makes sense even in a medieval fashion.

So in the end I took it all out, ornate border and all, and started again.

I’ve broadened the decorative border to have two navy lines and three gold, and given it a darker background.

Then I turned one of my resource photos into greyscale, printed it out and stared at it. I’ve also stretched out the colours a bit to emphasize the lights and the darks.

So now, I want to translate what I’ve seen to the slightly different cut of Aethelflaed’s dress, and the slightly different style of Opus. That may be a bit tricky.

First thing to do was to remove all the unhelpful darks already in place. I think I just need to start all over again!

So here is the start of starting all over again. Light at the front, quite broad, and some new highlights. I may have to think a bit more about the border, but I believe that will be easier to do as the rest of the dress comes together.

I also need to get the sleeves in. There’ll be a contrast here, the sleeves of a contrasting shift or under-dress, and that will help the image to make sense from a difference.