Saturday, August 29, 2015

Lafcadio Illustration

I wanted to share the steps I took to finish the illustration I created for the Roald Dahl/Shel Silverstein Tribute Show at Fan*Alley.  After doing character design explorations, I sketched out a body to match the face I chose.  Once I was happy with both the face and the body, I did some small character sketches on watercolor paper to finalize the look of Lafcadio as well as practice using the media I chose for the illustration.  The image below is one of many I did in advance of the final piece.

After the look of the character was nailed down, I sketched out the sequence for Lafcadio's suit fitting on copy paper making sure to double-check the spelling of words and the overall flow of the piece (pencil drawing not pictured).  I then taped that to a light table, laid a piece of watercolor paper on top, and then used a Zebra pen to trace the linework.  (BTW Zebra pens are waterproof! They are the best pens ever!)  The image below on the left is what the piece looked like prior to color.  Before adding any watercolor, I took a picture of the lineart with my phone's camera and imported that into Photoshop to create a color comp (the image on the right).

Below is the final piece framed and matted and ready to be hung.  I'm very happy with how it turned out.  The show opening itself was a blast!  There were a ton of fun people to chat with at the event!  I'm also happy to say that my piece sold that night!  Hooray!  Huzzah!  w00t!

P.S. Here are some details of the illustration.  They were taken with my phone so the color shifts here and there from image-to-image.

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