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Coloring with Princess Peach!
Some works only take a couple weeks from start to finish. Others take a weird, three year winding road to completion. Poor Princess Peach is in the ladder category. For years I had sketches and various versions of this piece, and just never had the time to finish it up. Well, I'm happy to announce that the curse has finally been lifted! She's done! Complete! IN LIVING COLOR!*** Today, I thought I'd share some of the progress shots I took while working on this piece. I used my typical kit of Copics, Copic Spica, and Sakura gelly pens. Since it's a smaller work with large details, the coloring process went really fast. Only about 4 hours--basically a whole episode of Critical Role.
Background
One mistake I often see artists make (my young self included) is coloring the foreground first. This is a huge issue because the background informs the foreground. Without filling in the background proper, you can't focus on the lighting or tone you're trying to set with a particular work. Indoor, outdoor, day, night, dungeon or tavern locations all light figures and objects differently. Plus, a fleshed out background keeps a work from appear too rushed or slapdash. Saving the background for last increased the temptation of not giving it the attention it deserves. In works with dynamic lighting, I'll fill parts of the foreground in while working on the background indicating where colors of light should hit. I'll use my lightest marker to fill in those special areas of lighting and blend it in later!
This work didn't require any special lighting requirements, just attention to where the off-camera sun would be positioned. 2D Mario backgrounds are great to work with. They all have that 11AM / Noontime sunlight going on and have a crisp, airy feel to them.
Foreground
With the background finished, the foreground is a breeze. For one, I'm not having to constantly check my lighting or worrying if the work is too dark. I completed her skin tones (a combination of peaches and light blues) first before moving on to the dress. Once the dress was filled in, I went back to the background to darken areas affected by her shadow. Finally came the crown, hair, and bear!
Once everything is nice and colored in, I used my Sakura gel pen to fill in extra highlights or just places I want more texture to the piece. Final step was using a couple Copic Spica pens to add glitter to the eyes, crown and jewels!
The glitter doesn't show up on prints, but adds some extra sparkle to the original piece. Remember kids, if I'm selling at a con you can always ask to see the original! I also sell a good portions of my originals at cons (*cough cough*).
And there you have it. A simple explanation on my coloring process! I hope you enjoyed it, and let me know in the comments if you'd like to see more posts like this in the future! ***Props to all the 90's kids who picked up on the reference!
