Ellen Aim - Streets of Fire pen drawing

You've got so many dreams that you don't know where to put them
so you better turn a few 'em a loose
(...)
Even if you don't have anywhere to go
You go down on the pedal and you're ready to roll
And your speed is all you'll ever need, all you'll ever need to know
Darlin' darlin', you and me we're going nowhere slowly
And we gotta get away from the past
There's nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby
But we should be going nowhere fast
It's so much better going nowhere fast
~ Nowhere Slowly, Fire Inc.

Work in Progress

This is easily one of the drawings I've enjoyed making the most, at least the initial stages of it when I still had patience. As usual, I guess one of the many reasons why I enjoyed it so much is because it was made as a gift to my mother.

Streets of Fire is a great and very important movie to her, so it's not like I could mess it up. And I made sure I wouldn't.


More pen drawings


Like I said, I learn from my mistakes. After the bad result with heavy amount of ink on cheap paper that happened on my Untamed - Dream Traveler [link] I used the best quality paper I have at my disposal. And after the disaster of my last drawing, Cresce e Contamina [link] , I learned how to calm myself down and be more careful. During the sketching, I made sure I erased Diane Lane's face as many times as it took until I was finally satisfied with the result in pencil. Took me 2 hours and a beginning stage of frustration, but I did it. I always hate my face drawings in pencil, so if I was satisfied with the resemblance in pencil, I couldn't possibly mess it up with pen. Her head is slightly more tilted upwards than it should, but I think it looks rather well and similar to the actress.

Now, I will thank ~VianaArts for his tips on shading. I tried to be more patient and careful on my strokes, and it was a great feeling while it lasted. Sure, I won't be able to do this a lot for many reasons, but it turned out pretty good to me. I grew bored in the last weeks and returned to my usual un-patience, but it was nice.


And yes, I spent more time waving my head and blasting my ears off with stupidly loud volume than actually drawing.


Reference image: Diane Lane as Ellen Aim, screenshot from the movie Streets of Fire. The scene is around 0:56 of this wonderful official music video/trailer [link]
Time taken: 1 month, probably around 9/10 hours in total - I'm very lazy
Size: around 60% of a A4 sheet
Materials: Fabriano A4 paper, pencil with no measures for sketch + rubber and pencil-rubber for sketch, 2 BIC black ballpoint pens and 1 red pen.
Music list: as mentioned, Nowhere Fast [link] , and Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young, by Fire Inc. and from Streets of Fire OST, blasting my ears off.