Leyendecker - Blog Posts

Ace Attorney but what if its J C Leyendecker who illustrated it

Process of my latest rookanis piece!

Original piece and thoughts under the cut ✨

As usual I've struggled with faces, it took a ton of attempts to get either of them right (all not included lmao, trust me, I struggled). Sometimes I overworked the rendering - most notably her hair. Chiara's hair is straight and the woman in the ref has curly hair, I kept overdoing the details in ways that didn't make sense. I wish the final result was closer to his style but alas, I can try that again in a new piece!

When I overwork pieces of a painting, I rather paint the area flat and try again from scratch than trying to fix the existing rendering. By doing it a second time I try to make each brushstroke more deliberate so that I need fewer moves to show what I want. Treat that first attempt as a test run, trust yourself that you'll do better the second time around.

J.C. Leyendecker, famous queer artist of dapper 1920s people, across a hundred years of separation: so sometimes we need to get a little athlete, I mean a real small one, posing like he’s going to kill and eat someone, leaving no shards of bone.

Me, humble disciple: absolutely absolutely

J.C. Leyendecker: he could kill a horse by sneering. That’s how cunty he is.

Me: doin my best, boss -

J.C. Leyendecker: you must then put him in the silky underwear -

Me: of course.

Leyendecker: do your absolute best to shine up the silky, shiny, thin underwear. Oil it.

Me: I’m not great at this -

Leyendecker: think silk. Think shiny. Think, “this is how you sell clothing to straight men.”

Me: is - is it?

Leyendecker: the whip must, of course, be slightly suggestive. No, more than that. More than that. It’s important that he be provocatively catchable, AND YET - he can defend himself!

Me: got it, boss. Um - you know I’m not actually - I don’t know how to paint -

Leyendecker: shhh, I am telling you. to sell suits we also need a suit guy. we model the suit guy on a Suit Guy, one of my 1920s Suit Guys, it’ll be great.

Me: I can probably draw -

Leyendecker: suit guy could kiss him on the head. 😘 . Like that. Say that.

Me: 🫡

J.C. Leyendecker, “man and jockey clothing advertisement,” 1923. This is how we sell men’s suits, apparently.