Monday, October 11, 2010

Illustration Friday - Transportation

Another week, another 'Illustration Friday' challenge, this week the word is "Transportation." My first thought was to do something with futuristic cars and monorails, but then another thought popped into my head, and that had to do with bicycles and dogs. The original idea was to have a bicyclist transporting a little dog in her bike's basket. But as I thought about the idea, I began to embellish it. I thought it might be funny to have other dogs chasing after the bicycle. Then, I thought it would be even better if the bicyclist were carrying two dogs, one riding up front, the other in a basket on the back of the bike. The dog in the back basket would have a self-satisfied look on its face, as if it were taunting the dogs that were chasing it. The last two things I decided to add were extra little details - a small puppy watching from the window of the building and an upset cat, hissing at the dog parade below while balancing on a balcony railing.


Here is my original pencil sketch. You can see that off to the left of the building, I had originally intended to add some stylized clouds and the edge of another building, but in the end, I decided to eliminate those details, keeping it simple with just the suggestion of some tree shapes.


I created the image in Corel Painter and primarily used the digital watercolor brushes, especially the New Simple Water brush and the Coarse Mop Brush which gives a nice fuzzy bleed effect after you've applied the stroke.  For the details I used a couple of Painter's pen brushes - the Smooth Round Pen and a modified version of the Leaky Pen.  I colored the bike rider's hair and most of her clothing, as well as the bicycle baskets with Painter's gouache brush. In the screen shot to the left, you can see where I've begun to color in the background.

I used a lot of layers so that it would be easier to make changes. In this screen shot, you can see the list of layers that I set up. When you have this many layers, it becomes very important to name them so that you know what is on each layer.
In this last screen shot, you can see a close-up view of the little dog in the window and the hissing cat that I added as background details.

One of my inspirations for the style of this piece, especially as far as the background goes, was the artwork in Disney's 1961 animated "One Hundred and One Dalmatians." That film's sketchy drawing style, brought a big change to the look of Disney's animated films.  It's my understanding that a new technique for xeroxing the artist's pencil drawings directly on to the animation cels, is what gave the film its unique look. But even the character design and coloring of the backgrounds was unique to a Disney feature, it had more of the look of some of the mid-century modern cartoons that were being made at UPA studios than the romantic classical backgrounds of previous Disney features. If you're interested in this subject, I highly recommend the book "Cartoon Modern" by Amid Amidi.

14 comments:

  1. Wonderful work Vincent! I love that poor little guy in the window. He has such a wanting look on his face. Great movement and oh so fun!! ... and that detail...WOW you ROCK!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great read--and piece!--Vincent! As a Painter user myself, it was inspiring to see how someone else uses the software. Thanks for sharing those details!

    ReplyDelete
  3. love, love, love this one Vincent, great work

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love your girl on the bike... and her coinciding colors :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow! Your sharing of your process is so interesting and inspiring! You have such a great blog! Thank you for writing the details and for the desk top examples! Wonderful work!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great characters! Love the colours too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great work...thanks for sharing your process.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is such a great image! And its so neat to see your process :) I love your dogs!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love this cute parade of pups! So fun! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great illo! I love the choice of colors. Such cute doggies!

    ReplyDelete
  11. this is wonderful - love the parade of doggies, and especially enjoyed the background on the illo, really interesting to learn about different approaches - thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Another great illustration Vincent, love the story telling, so much going on, great details.

    ReplyDelete
  13. charming characters, love all the details especially the cat on the railings:)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Love the treatment and the colours used. Great illo.

    ReplyDelete