That floating crown

[Emil Visti]

You probably know what I'm talking about. I've seen it around a lot - where artists put this little two dimensional crown on top of a character sketch, right?

What is the origin of that and what does it signify? Also, I can't for the life of me find a sketch with one now, except the one that reminded me of it.

[Serpian]

Someone did it, someone else thought it was cool, so he did it, and so on. It's like that speech bubble with a heart in it. You don't have to include it your pictures if you don't want to :P

[rattsang]

hmmm i dont think ive seen this anyone care to post an example of link

[HunterKiller_]

Crown = person of high authority and power.

[DavePalumbo]

Well, it's come into fashion to incorporate flat graphic elements into a more realistically rendered image and the floating crown is just one example. I don't know who could claim to have done it first, but you could arguably take that back quite a ways depending on how you look at it (I see similarity in medieval religious paintings with the halos, but maybe that's just me).

Though I think that the blend of graphic elements and realistic painting can be pretty exciting and effective, that crown thing really is getting pretty tiresome for me. Same with the speech bubble and heart, since it was mentioned. A few artists can get away with it, but mostly it feels very copycat in the worst way. Such is my opinion :)

[Goog]

I'm pretty sure Mike Mignola was the first, and I believe he came up with it as the character Hellboy in certain circumstances has a floating crown above his head.

Of course, I may be wrong.

[Farvus]

I think it could mean: "My sketch rules"

[Psychotime]

I'm pretty sure Mike Mignola was the first, and I believe he came up with it as the character Hellboy in certain circumstances has a floating crown above his head.

Of course, I may be wrong.

Yeah, i second this.

[HunterKiller_]

but you could arguably take that back quite a ways depending on how you look at it (I see similarity in medieval religious paintings with the halos, but maybe that's just me).

Yeah, I reckon that's where it would've came from.

[Not Pink]

honestly, you can look waaaaaay back in time and see the same type of crown in graffiti and tagging from way back in the 70's

I've seen works of art as early as the late 8o's incorporate it, but it's gotten alot more popular as certain graffiti styles have become more mainstream.

this artist I've been following incorporates graffiti into a Comic he's been working on lately, and It's a lot different from what I've seen before. us he the first? I don't know, but I like it. find him here. (http://ahuerta.deviantart.com/)

[Goog]

honestly, you can look waaaaaay back in time and see the same type of crown in graffiti and tagging from way back in the 70's

I've seen works of art as early as the late 8o's incorporate it, but it's gotten alot more popular as certain graffiti styles have become more mainstream.

this artist I've been following incorporates graffiti into a Comic he's been working on lately, and It's a lot different from what I've seen before. us he the first? I don't know, but I like it. find him here. (http://ahuerta.deviantart.com/)

I would bet heavily on the fact that this guy as well borrowed the crown thing from Mignola, as he has a sketch after Mignola's hellboy.

[Not Pink]

from what I've heard from him, I thought he was doing graffiti back in the late 80's and I've seen some of his original tags where he used the crown

hellboy wasn't shown off until a convention in the early 90's (I believe 91 at the salt lake con). I have no idea if Mr. Mignola used it before HB, but like I said, I could go back into the 60's and 70's into any graffiti history book and find the crown so idk.

btw, by "the first" I was talking about Ahuerta being the first to mix traditional comic art with graffiti style, which I have yet to see anywhere else.

The world may never know... /tootsie pop commercial

[kev ferrara]

i think it was the rise of digital design/photo manipulation and guys like Phil Hale and Rick Berry who first re-popularized the addition of graphic elements like halos and crown and symbols into their "fine art" realistic painting in the late 1980s... But really, comic books has kept the tradition alive all along. Then again, any realist artist who signs his name on his work is pretty much doing the same thing, putting symbols on top of the realism....

kev

[Elwell]

honestly, you can look waaaaaay back in time and see the same type of crown in graffiti and tagging from way back in the 70's

:up: this

Who was the first to use it in a fine arts or illustration context? Who knows, but it's been floating around in the artistic aether for quite a while.

[arttorney]

This company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleer
(note the crown in their logo)

was including little comic strips in their "Double Bubble" bubble gum since the 1930s. I don't think it is any accident that crowns have been shaking around in the minds of people who make sequentials for more years than any of us have been alive.