FanArt Friday: Belle (From Disney’s Beauty and the Beast)

I am a Disney Kid. There’s no way I can deny that. I’ve watched every movie that has come from Disney that I can get my hands on. And though I love all the Disney characters, I’ve always been annoyed with Belle. Well, not her, but the way Disney sells her.

Most of the promotion towards this movie is directed to the moment Beast and her “fall in love.” Spoilers, it’s the ball gown. Don’t get me wrong, I love that gown, its gorgeous. As I’ve grown up I fallen more in love with it. Heck, it wasn’t until I wrote this post that I realized that my wedding colors are very similar to the Beauty and the Beast iconic color theme (Blue and Gold).

But I wish Disney would have more stuff related to the book lover she is. She shouldn’t be defined just as a girl who fell in love, ya know?

So, as I was once told, if you see a problem, fix it. And the easiest way to fix this is to create fan art of Belle!

After “finishing” this piece, I asked my fiance for his suggestions because I couldn’t decide why she didn’t look right to me. He then relayed to me a lesson he learned from Arin from Game Grumps (on YouTube) and I want to pass it on to anyone who wants to do fan art because I (now) completely agree with it.

Keep the facial features the same as the original, but add your style to everything else.

In other words keep what’s iconic, or most recognizable, about the character as close as you can to the original. You can still do that in your own style, but it’s important to keep this in mind while working on your piece.

So, after thinking about that bit of advice, I added a few fixes and decided to call it officially finished.

My fan art of Belle was very much inspired by the “Belle” song (some call the song “Little Town”) from the Disney movie. It was done on Mixed Media paper with diluted acrylic paint and an india ink pen. I haven’t done a side view like this in a while; it was middle school when I last tried this actually. So, to say the least, I feel like I still need to practice on this angle.

I want to watch this movie all over again after doing this piece! But since there’s a live-action version of it coming out, I might just watch that instead. 😉

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