Now, I'm not talking about the drawing...but that I recently changed my blog title from "The Boring Penguin Blog" (well, briefly it was Zombie baby pictures, but everyone that went to my blog thought it was going to be zombie pictures...and I was meaning zombie baby pictures figuratively...) so I changed it to Heebeejeebees. I changed it because I wasn't drawing penguins, but either cute little square animal toy creature things and the blobs that ate them. But suddenly all I'm drawing these days are cute things...and forgetting to include a horrible twist. the picture above is an example of that...
Anyhow - I struggled mightily with the color. I went into photoshop with a very clear color palette:
It's a habit I've been trying to get into - picking my colors in Illustrator before I export to photoshop. Basically I take a couple of colors I want to use - and then plug them into the color guide. It then gives you a spectrum of colors that compliment or are shades of or contrast the color you chose. I make my swatches (a bunch of squares) and then apply a color to each square.
Anyhow - things were rolling along quite well - with the green and purple...but then it came time to color the dog...I think that went well, but then the suitcases...I almost just took them out completely (but then I would have lost the story in the illustration)...I think I got the color to work, but I'm not in love with it...any suggestions?
I'd also like to hear - if you have time, what you think of the composition and characters and such...but only if you have time! Also - I really want to take my drawings to that next level. So feel free to be harsh! No need to pull punches! I needs to get the suck outta my drawings! And thanks in advance! Unless you didn't have time to comment...then nevermind...
EDIT: Now I made some changes - The first thing I did was do 'self colored lines' which looked horrible. It's something I haven't done before (I like the thick black line) so even with all the time it took to break up the lines from each other, I still had to scrap the idea...i dont even know if the changes show up on this small version...but basically I added a slight pinking to her cheeks - I had to tone it down from where I originally had it as the more pink i added made her look like she was bruising, not blushy...I also added some yellows to her greens. And to top it off I added a 16 percent saturation. Before I saturated it, I didn't even realize how grey her face was. Maybe I was zombie-ing her up a bit. There IS hope for me!
PS - I'm thinking of going to the San Diego SCBWI convention Feb. 7th. Has anyone been to this one before? I just joined the scbwi on the 1st, and I have no idea...but I'm going to go and I'm going to show. Or sit and listen...or what is it that they do, and what is required of me? If anyone is even still reading - maybe you could drop me a line at isaac@isaacmarzioli.com and let me know what to expect as an illustrator. There's a 20 minute crit with Joy Chu...and you can set up a 16 inch display...but it has to be a verticle display...and no postcards or things on the table...everything has to stick or protrude out of your verticle display. Say huh?
