Frozen

If you have children, you may have heard of the movie, "Frozen." It is wildly popular, and for good reason. It's terrific. My girls are obsessed having seen the movie a bunch of times, listening to the soundtrack and playing with the toys. Frozen is a phenomenon.

Among the Frozen swag we have around the house are a few illustrated picture books. I have admired the technical ability of the artists that Disney employs. Since I am attempting to learn similar techniques, I thought I'd give replicating one of the images a go. What do you think?

Credit: Picture on left is from book, "Anna's Best Friends" by Christy Webster (illustrated by Disney Storyboard Artists).

I'm a far way away from making my own illustrations come to life, but trying to duplicate images from a book has helped me with the technique.

Comics are the testing ground

It's a new year, so I'm trying new things. One of the goals I have as an illustrator is to learn better coloring techniques. Since I've been doing Milk for Dead Hamsters, my coloring has been relatively unchanged. I take the paint bucket in Photoshop, fill areas with color and then add some shadows:

When I started illustrating books in 2012, I picked up some techniques to make for different results. But essentially, this was just a practice of applying some textures over the colored areas. This produced a water-color-like effect. But realistically, it was all the same.For example, the background here is dabbed with some water color PS brushes:

But I want to take some control over the matter. I want to learn how to digitally paint. I have been using a lot of the tutorials on Ctrl+Paint to help me. So far, I love the development. I am going to periodically use m4dh as my testing ground for my progression before I employ these techniques in books or freelance jobs. While digital painting takes more time, the end result is a warmer, more welcoming image. Here's my first go at it: