Thought as I was creating some illustrations I'd document the journey and show my favourite way of creating art work. I started out with drawing in pencil and then outlining in fine liners, 0.3 and 0.1. These sketches were some ideas for my business card. I couldn't decide whether I wanted it a portrait of me or show off my historical passion.
Next I scanned the outline into Photoshop and clean up the image removing any specs that manage to show up in the final image.
Adding the clothing is probably my favourite part of the process, I find images or fabrics online or those I've scanned in myself and add them into the drawing. For the tudor dress I found a dress online that I liked the pattern of, using layer masks I select the area I want the dress to display in.
Using Liqufiy I then manipulate the dress to fit into the drawn outline to make it fit my character. Sometimes (like I had to do for this image) I create multiples of the same layer but tweak them to fit each element separately. For example the top half of the dress is in three layers, the bust and two arms. This way I can make the outfit fit much better.
One all of the outfit is fitted into place I just use Dodge and Burn to add highlights and shadows to the dress where it matches on my outline or perhaps where shadows should be that aren't on the fabric. On this specific dress I added highlights and shadows to the pleats, shadows to the inner sleeve, under the arms and highlights to the chest.
The same principle applies to the other character!
Then I print the images onto 90gms paper on High setting. Sometimes I print on thicker paper depending on what I need the characters for. I colour the hair and skin with pencils and anything black I also colour with pencil. Printing black fabric just consumes more ink and comes out quite dark, whereas with pencil I can create shadows and textures without the ink usage.
Using a scalpel I cut them out!
I use a black felt tip to go around all the edges of the characters, this is a tip I learned from Terry Gilliam. The black takes away the sharp white paper edge and makes the characters seem more realistic and less paper like.
These characters then were posed in sets, I have a small set pre-made for tudor settings with doll furniture and having my dad be a gardener means there's always colour and flowers in our garden anytime of the year which gives me free sets (if the weather is good!)
The photos I take then go through the adjustment process in Lightroom. Small adjustments to make the colours correct or more vibrant. Moving back into Photoshop with the final images I played around until I got some card designs I quite liked. The tudor design went through a bigger process of highlighting and shadowing and adding in the fireplace. The photos could also be used for images, stories or anything else I like. I take a huge range of photos at different angles to make a bigger range to choose from.
