The Tiger Girl doodle bomb, or “bombette” as my friend Megan calls it, is done! While other doodle bombs, or re-covers, have been done tongue-in-cheek or as an homage to the covers’s subject, this one is more of a transformation of demure cover model Elle Fanning into a Bridgitte Bardot inspired Tiger Girl. Let’s take a look at the before and after and in-between photos.
First step was to give her the “kattsy” treatment: stripes, eyes, ears and a mouth shaped like a heart.
Sometimes I like to draw on clear film overlays or color copies to work out basic ideas for my doodles. The orange one was a Josie and the Pussycats inspired look.
The blue one was inspired by one of my own paintings. The cheetah print and blue background idea stuck and I used it for the final image. The use of cheetah print reminds me of the Interview Magazine covers of my youth as illustrated by Richard Bernstein.
In the end I decided I would not draw over the open chest area and instead let it contrast the busy cheetah background. Most of the work was completed using Posca markers, excepting the hair which I wanted to have a hand tinted look so I used a marker that was not opaque. I really liked the blue outline around the stripes idea, but decided to go with the black stripes on skin for the final.