Digital Coloring: Snow White
I took this class because my normal go-to digital painting program was giving me problems, and I temporarily had to find another way to create illustrations. Drawing old school first and then scanning and digitally coloring it, was kind of new to me. It turned out to be something I really enjoyed though, and will definitely use in the future.
1. Concept
I wanted to create a portrait of Snow White, maybe for print on shirts and/or cards. This meant it had to be a clear, strong image, almost icon-like, with not too many details, colors or background stuff going on.
Sketches
I usually don't do elaborate sketches, so Sara's suggestion to create 2-5 quick thumbnails was right up my alley; most of the time I just start with a basic idea and figure it all out as I draw.
Art Board
I used Pinterest to create an art board. I made it a point not to google Snow White images (which are other people's interpretation of Snow White), but rather draw inspiration from other sources, like dance, art, jewelry etc. This way I hope to keep it fresh. You can find my complete art board on Pinterest.
2. Drawing
It's been years since I used old school (e.g. non-digital) materials like pencils - I even had to scour the house for a decent scrap of drawing paper! Drawing like this again felt really good though.
3. Coloring
Tryout
First, I tried out some color combos with colored pencils on copies of my drawing, to give me a sense of the direction I want to take:
Digital coloring
To create coherence, I limited myself to only two colors, red and blue (and lighter shades of those two). To make it more interesting, I put a texture layer on top of some of the colors:
4. End Result
I thought the coloring would be a quick job since it would be digitally done. Boy, was I wrong! It probably took up as many hours as the drawing, possibly even more. The whole illustration, from start to finish, took me about a week. The background color in the final piece is a temporary color, and depends on the material the image will be printed on:
Thanks for looking at my work, and a big thanks to Sara for the nice workshop!
If you like, you can follow other works in progress on: