My Combined Illustration - Practice

Now that I have completed an illustration in the style of each of my illustrators, I have decided to practice creating my final combination drawing which requires me to blend the style of both illustrators together in order to create my own unique style.  I enjoy drawing male illustrations so I have decided to focus on this for my final combined illustrations.  In order to complete this illustration I have made a list of the features from both illustrators that I would like to include as follows;

• Arturo's exaggerated body
• Arturo's formal clothing
• Hanna's monochrome skin tone
• Hanna's solid outline technique
• Hanna's facial style
• Hanna's hairstyle

To begin my illustration, I decided to use watercolour paint as after using it on my past two illustrations, I feel relatively confident that I can use this media successfully.  My finished illustration is shown below and I like the outcome however I do feel that the style looks slightly more similar to Hanna Muller's but this is only a practice so I have an opportunity to correct these mistakes for my final combined illustration.

My final combined illustration created
using watercolour paints

Having used Photoshop to edit my last few illustrations, I am going do some work to this illustration also using the programme.  I began by opening a new Photoshop document before opening my illustration and dragging it onto my document.  I then created a new layer and used the paintbrush tool to add an outline to the illustration.  I also added some definition to the facial features as well as the hair and the shoes as shown in the screenshots below.

Screenshot showing the outline which was added to the illustration

Screenshot illustrating the detail which was added to the footwear

After completing all of the details on the illustration, I then selected layer 1 and used the smudge tool to blend the colour together and I used this method for the remainder of the illustration.  My completed illustration is shown below and although I added slightly more detail to the illustration, I still feel that it looks like a replica of Hanna Muller's work which means that I have failed to combine my illustrator styles successfully.  I feel that perhaps I have been unsuccessful because there was an uneven balance in the elements taken from each illustrator.  I believe that even though I have not been able to achieve my desired result, this has been a beneficial illustration as it has highlighted what I need to alter or change in order to improve my final illustration.

Screenshot showing final combined illustration which was
created using watercolour paints and Photoshop