Pages 24 and 25 Finished Illustration

I finished painting these this Saturday, got them scanned and adjusted all the colors today.  Not a whole lot of adjustment layers needed on this one thankfully.  These are the final interior pages of the book, I only have to finish page one and then all of the interior pages will be done!  All that remains after the last interior page is done are the front cover, back cover, dedication, title page and special thanks.

Page 23 Finished Illustration

Finished another painting this weekend and it has a similar color scheme like the previous page.  The main concern with this piece was to make sure the door behind the fox was painted very lightly to make sure the head of the fox stands out.  The next two pages are the final two interior illustrations as well as a double page spread.

Dakota Johnson Portrait - Suspiria (2018)

I am a big fan of the new Suspiria film starring Dakota Johnson and I really wanted to try and paint a portrait of her.  Portraits are one of my weaknesses as an artist so this was certainly a challenge.  I first did a line drawing using a col-erase blue pencil.  The paper is coldpress watercolor paper and all the paint is transparent.  I only used five colors - primary cyan, permanent violet dark, dioxazine purple, alizarin crimson hue and primary yellow.  I don't think I nailed the likeness, but I still learned a lot painting it.

Page 21 and Page 22 Finished Illustrations

I finished both of these recently, forgot to post them here.  I am almost finished with all the interior pages - just four more to go!  After the interior pages are done, I have five more illustrations to complete which includes the covers, dedication and title page.  Almost done!  I hope to have most of my book completed before I begin teaching fall classes.  I want to have my kickstarter up and ready to go sometime this fall. 

Page 20 Finished Illustration

Painting this illustration was fairly simple, it was adjusting the scan that proved to be troublesome.  Pretty much all the colors had to be adjusted.  I did a lot of color balance adjustment layers and I managed to get the scan to match the original as close as possible.  The colors in the scan always seem to be slightly darker than the original.  Still, I am happy with the results.  When painting, I just treated the dragon as part of the background, almost as if I was painting a landscape.  The fox is the only area of the painting with absolute darks ( paynes grey ).

Pages 18 and 19 Finished Illustrations

This is my first double page spread!  It was a lot of fun to create but it also required a lot of thinking since it is such a complex composition.  It was a fun challenge.  Adjusting the colors of the scanned images took a few days since I had to do a lot of complicated layer masks.  It seems my scanner likes to cool down any and all warm colors so I had to adjust all the yellow greens, oranges and magentas.  I have 12 more pages to go and I hope to have most of it done by the end of summer!

Page 16 and 17 Finished Illustrations

 Here are the next two pages for my book.  Still moving at a steady pace, I should have pages 18 and 19 finished before the end of the school year.  Pages 18 and 19 are one illustration - a double page spread, so it should be fun to paint.