A New Era for reDRWN

SERIES V IS HERE!

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SERIES V IS HERE! 〰️

I’m going to keep it a buck with y’all, I don’t like writing blogs! I deplore it but I also know this is a great way for many to stay up to date with a creator and their work. It’s also a good record of things going on too. Luckily, I don’t have to write these for anyone but myself.

ANYWAY: Let’s chat a bit about the reDRWN Portrait Project! It’s now on it’s fifth iteration and I truly can’t believe we’ve come this far. The project originated as far back as 2016 and started simply as a giveaway to Patrons as a way to thank them for their unbridled support.

Former Patron, Rey (2016)

The reception was well received so I continued to do more, fleshing out different concepts and styles. I was absolutely obsessed with graffiti style glyphs for a couple of years, so a lot of the backgrounds would follow that pattern. As time went on, I came to a revelation that I wanted this project to expand. Soon, I started to draw faces of folks who weren’t Patrons. Eventually leading to a focus on drawing Black people.

Dellz, reDRWN Series III: Creeps, 2021

This shift was made because I believe that as a Black Artist we are vanguards of our own representation and culture. Even though we’ve made great strides in media, it’s still not too common to see Black folks in science-fiction and fantasy spaces in art. Enter Series III: Creeps. From 2019 to 2021, I went ham putting this portraits out, each with their own unique surreal flair. At some point, I did get tired of the portraits. I took a short break and came back with Cyber, which followed the trend of body modification seen within the cyberpunk genre. This too would fall off and out of my interest and took another short break. This break was more of a “block”, to be honest.

It wasn’t until I came across the work of Sarah Aladayleh where the concept for the next series hit me! I caught one of Sarah’s streams where she was drawing a portrait of actor Adam Scott as he appeared in the Apple TV Series, Severance. The simple yet stark contrast of this black & white portrait truly inspired me.

Bomaye, reDRWN Series V: Contrast, 2022-Present

This is where Series V: Contrast was born. This has been my favorite version of this project as it’s testing some art muscles I never knew I had. Animation has always been such a mysterious thing to me but I decided to just jump right in and figure it out as I go. I’ve been having a blast with these and I’ve learned so much! There’s only a handful left before the project goes on hiatus again (to focus on other projects) but when it comes back, I’ll still continue Contrast for a while.

Go check out Contrast here to see all the amazing and creepy portraits I’ve done so far! And, of course, shout out to my amazing Patrons for keeping projects like this going.