My Concluding Combined Illustration

After completing my practice version of my combined illustration, I am now more aware of how I can improve. For my practice illustration, I made a list of the features from both illustrators which I would like to blend together in order to create my combined illustration.  On my previous list, I had chosen to use 4 elements from Hanna's style and only 2 elements from Arturo's meaning the illustration was obviously more representative of Hanna's work.  For this illustration however, I have created a new equally balanced list for my next illustration as follows:

• Arturo's exaggerated body
• Arturo's captivating pose, including the use of a prop
• Arturo's formal clothing
• Arturo's sophisticated colours for the clothing
• Hanna's facial features, including glasses
• Hanna's monochrome skin tone
• Hanna's solid outline technique (to be used on skin tone only)
• Hanna's hairstyle

Once I had identified the elements that I wanted to use from each illustrator, I was able to proceed with my illustration and I again chose to complete a hand drawing before painting it using watercolours as I thought that this would give me a good basis before completing my digital work on Photoshop.  My finished illustration is shown below and opted to use Arturo's iconic exaggeration on the body and I chose this particular pose because a lot of Arturo's illustration involve movement.  I included the shopping bag because Arturo regularly uses props in his work so I thought this would be appropriate.  I feel that the clothing and choice of colours are sophisticated and suitable for Arturo's style as he regularly pairs jeans with a dressy jacket on his own illustrations.  I wanted to used Hanna's facial features as I felt that this would help to add a captivating and mysterious tone to the illustration.  I decided to include the glasses as Hanna's illustrations are recognised by these unusual small details.  I used monochrome tones for the skin tone in the same way as Hanna as I felt that this would create a good contrast between the coloured clothing, without looking like inappropriate and I finished the face by using Hanna's hair technique as I thought that her hairstyle were stylish yet classic meaning that this would help to complete the illustration.

My final combined illustration which was
created using watercolour paints 

I am very pleased with my final illustration as I feel that it is one of the best illustrations I have completed throughout this assignment however, Arturo Elena creates a lot of his illustrations digitally therefore I would like to try this method on my own illustration.  I am going to digitally enhance the drawing on Photoshop as I feel that this could allow me to improve the illustration.  The digital process has been broken down below with written descriptions and screenshots provided where relevant.    

I began by opening a new page in Photoshop, before setting up my paintbrush and smudge tool using the same technique as mentioned in my previous posts.  More information regarding this area can be found in the third paragraph of the posting entitled ' My Own Illustration in the Style of Hanna Muller'.

After scanning my original watercolour illustration, I then opened the image in Photoshop and transferred it to my new page using the 'move' tool before creating a new layer.  Using the same paint a smudge method which I used on my last few illustrations, I began applying different shades of coloured paint to both the jeans and jacket on separate layers, using my own original illustration as a guideline for the shading. I then used the smudge tool to blend the colour together until I was happy with the result as shown in the image below.

Screenshot showing the colour which was painted and smudged
to create the jacket and trousers on my illustration

I then proceeded using the same technique to add the shoes and the belt on different layers however I decided to change the colour of these items to brown as I felt that this was more appropriate for the other garments so I simply altered my paint colours to suit as illustrated below.

Screenshot which shows the belt and shoes which were adapted
to a brown colour instead of grey as in my original illustration

I created yet another two new layers before using the same method to create the jumper and the shopping bag however when finished smudging, I used the 'Add Noise' tool to create a speckled type texture which is illustrated in the screenshots below.  I also decided to adjust the position of the shopping bag at this stage to make it look more realistic.

Screenshot demonstrating the 'add noise' tool which
was used to create texture on the  jumper

Screenshot showing the 'add noise' tool which
was used to create texture on the bag

The next stage of the digital process was adding the outline to the skin tone areas including face, hands and ankles using the paintbrush tool.  I also added the facial features and hair at this stage as shown below.

Screenshot which illustrates the facial detail and the
hair which were simply added using the paintbrush

The final stage of my illustration was the skin tone and I decided to use my previous technique which was using the smudge tool to blend my own original drawing on layer 1.  This technique is shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot showing the 'smudge' tool which was used to smooth
the skin tone on my original watercolour illustration

After completing all of the time-consuming digital work, my finished illustration is displayed below and I honestly could not be more pleased with it as I feel that it clearly demonstrates components from both of my chosen illustrators.  I think that without doubt, this is my best piece of work and I am astonished with what I have been able to achieve using a mixture of my hand-drawn ability and my Photoshop skills.  I feel that I have been able to achieve this result by carrying out my practice illustration as this really highlighted where I had gone wrong and thankfully I was able to correct these mistakes and I am extremely proud with my finished illustration.  

My final combined illustration which was completed
using watercolour paint and Photoshop