Little Witch with Frizzy Hair, a DTIYS Art Challenge

Final painting

I have been itching to participate in a "Draw This In Your Style" challenge for a while. When I found Kate P's DTIYS post, I knew I have found my chance. As usual, I started with thumbnails.

First set of thumbnails

DTIYS is unique because I am drawing another artist's character. I need to make myself familiar with the character, so I simply copied the original painting (see 1), noting characteristics like frizzy hair, round glasses, round hat, star stickers on her cheeks, chameleon companions... Her personality seems to be hopeful, bright and optimistic. Finally, the star motif seems important to her.

Next, I looked for a pose and angle the suit the character, but different enough from the original image. I experimented with relaxed/taking a break pose (see 2) and higher angle (see 3). I felt that I did not capture her personality in these, so I started with personality in mind. It seemed to me that she would be curious and excited at new discoveries. What if she opened her magic book the first time and saw the wonders there? What if she was so excited she had a big grin on her face? When if magic literally exploded out, blowing off her hat and her chameleon companions? And so, I drew thumbnail 4.

I was happy with thumbnail 4. Next was the extra push. What could I add, refine, or exaggerate for the final drawing? 

Second set of thumbnails

First, I exaggerated her body, stretching her torso and arms to emphasize her reaction to the explosion (see 5). I also scaled up the book and curved it, but I thought it looked like newspaper.

Next, I fit the sketch in a square frame (see 6). I added the chameleons. One grabbed her collar and hang for dear life, while the other one flew through the air. I started to think about the effects, stars, and background values.

At this point I started to realize that the stars were important, so I experimented with varying star shapes (see 7).

Finally, I experimented with a circular shockwave (see 8). Chameleon reactions were pushed further for comical effect. I found this too busy and distracting, so I more or less adopted 6 for the final drawing.

Pencil of the final drawing

One thing I found while drawing the pencil was her mouth shape. Thus far, I always drew the head full with a mouth shape. See the thumbnails above to see what I mean. The weird shape irritated me but I did not know how to fix it... until I drew a rotated "U" shape for her mouth. I remembered feeling really happy with this.

Inked final drawing

The long curved lines were my worry when I started inking. Then I remembered being loose and accepting slightly inaccurate lines from back when inking "The Year of the Rabbit". So I surprisingly enjoyed inking the effect lines. Stippling was fun as well, but left me wanting a pen that could produce visibly larger dots.

If drawing for DTIYS was slightly harder, coloring was easier. I got to pick colors from the original painting! Yay! Well, I did paint a lighting color plan so I could blend the objects colors to this painting mood and lighting.

Lighting color plan

Other than that, painting was relatively uneventful. All in all, I am really happy with how this image turned out! :)