Alexander Hamilton from the Hamilton musical.
Music, lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Ink is done with three primary shades, black, white, and grey. With portraiture, we should keep the focus considered, as some mid-tones can soften the impact too much if they are applied universally everywhere. For this reason, I kept the hair done in ink only, without using any half tones.
Similar simplicity with applying minimal highlights on the face and on the jacket also achieves a good attention to a diagonal line that matches one of the primary vertical lines of the star that the figure is sitting in.
The colored version brings a different dynamic to a picture.
Immediately, the yellow of the star splashed energy into the portrait, which I tried to balance by putting a strong blue as Alexander's jacket. Mind the saturation levels of both colors. Muted palette can work wonders too but for a musical inspired piece, I went with a pomp and energetic saturated yellows and blues.
With the rest, kept things simple. Different shades of browns for his hair, face and outfit, and a little touch of pale pink to keep things light and fresh on his cravat.
The colored version delivers that the figure might be actually singing better than the sketch, I think. It is difficult to nail a facial expression of a seriously singing male actor (singing, not belting out a tune), so I was quite pleased with how this turned out.
This was a very successful musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, he wrote the book, the lyrics and the music to the entire thing and he also starred as Alexander Hamilton in the original production. On Broadway, it received critical reception and the sales of its tickets were unprecedented success. Won many, many awards and very well deserved.
Its music is fresh, too, it was mostly sung and rapped and mixed hip hop, R&B, pop, soul into its tracks. There's a lot of youtube if you want to check out its amazing songs, but here's one if you're lazy to search on your own:
The casting and message of the entire musical were progressive, too. Non-whites were cast portraying Founding Fathers and other historical figures, if they merited the performance. Miranda said that his cast makes the production looks like our current America and that it was his intentions to immerse his audience into the musical without dragging too much cultural baggage.
He probably succeeded. It was sold out shows! Set Broadway record for the most money grossed in a single week in New York, breaking $3.3 million for an 8-performance week. The first show ever to break $3m in 8 performances!
I really liked Hamilton. The talents and the heart of it!
Here's the wikipedia to Hamilton if you want to read more about it.
Do you like musical? If you do, which ones are your favourites? Have you seen one of these in Broadway?
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