The Princess of the Evening Sun
Model: Deliane Jacobine Lefevre
Photographer/Design: Sabrina Nielsen
You've already met the Keeper of Starlight, now I want you to meet the Princess of the Evening Sun.
She's born every evening as the sun dances across the sky in hues from pure gold to warm fire red. In a vision of sparkling gold, she emerges in a castle garden. But this evening something is different. Eerie shivers of foreboding run down the spine of the Princess.
She knows her time has come. Creatures of darkness have found her and they chase her through the castle grounds. But you can never outrun the shadows, when you only live in the light.
You have to give your soul willingly. She sees no way out. Death or soulless living. Which would you choose...
Currents of magic ripple through the air as she releases her soul. The light that leaves her attracts the butterflies.
The sound of their wings flapping is a lullaby. They carry her to sleep and to safety.
Without a soul, she must live in the shadows. Without a soul, she must never see the sun again. She will remain in the shadows, a statue forever asleep.
My head has been filled with these blue butterflies for so many months; This vision of a princess from a lost time, dressed in gold and covered by blue butterflies. So I took another step into my world with the beautiful Deliane.
At any given moment, my mind is filled with ideas about beauty in sadness, and to be honest, I couldn't relinquish this idea just yet, so this next chapter had to be about another ethereal creature losing her soul.
The last picture is what I have seen in my mind for so many months now, it is what I saw at first and how this character came to life. She has stood like a statue in my mind for so long, reminding me of where I needed to go. And yet, the final photo still takes my breath away. I couldn't, in a million years, have imagined how absolutely perfect Deliane would look in real life and how the evening sun would hang so low in the sky, it would burn through the foliage like a last caress for its princess, or how the frost on the ground would remain so late in the day and be such a contrast to the fire of the sun.
The dress for this costume, for once, was actually the easy part. This gold and purple flower fabric was perfect for the dress and I bought months in advance before I had even decided on the design - not something I usually recommend or do, but this time was an exception.
The bodice and the sleeves are embellished with gold lace and loads of gold Swarovski crystals.
I wanted to shoot the dress with and without the butterflies, so I moulded clear hard bases that were detachable (using Worbla's Transpart). The butteflies are of paper, printed and then cut out, glued together, front and back, and then I filled in all the white bits to avoid any distracting signs of paper in the photos.
This process took forever. I've cut out hundreds and hundreds of butterflies. I actually didn't count them, because I was so busy just trying, you know, make them, but lets just say I watched the entire the Hobbit trilogy, extended cut of course, AND all of the extra behind the scenes stuff while cutting out the butterflies.
Even though, they took so long to make and I probably won't ever use them again, it was so worth it (for me anyway). I can't tell you how much I love creating these one of a kind costumes and making something more than..."clothing".
On the day of the shoot, we arrived at our location in the afternoon; The garden of an castle ruin. We started getting ready in the bright afternoon sun. There was a group of children celebrating at a birthday party, they became completely enchanted by Deliane, who looked like a real life princess. They hid in the bushes around Deliane as we were shooting. It was so cute how mesmerized they were. But then again, who wouldn't be? Deliane is stunning and always an exciting model to work with - I don't understand why some agency hasn't snapped her up yet!
I hope you've enjoyed this character. I'm currently prepping to start work on the next five costumes for this series. This year I will be putting most of my time and efforts into "The Soul Chronicles" and I'm beyond excited about that! The next costumes will be bigger and more elaborate. We'll move away from the Light Keepers for a while and pay a visit to the Dark Elves among others :D
