This version of a Frankenstein monster is inspired by photos of the creature in Evil of Frankenstein played by Kiwi Kingston.
I’ve only seen two of the Hammer Frankenstein series; The Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Created Woman. Once of these days I’ll have to catch up on the other films.
I didn’t add much color to the image after the initial colorization. This creature seemed like he should be pale and corpselike in hue.
This second Frankenstein creature is inspired by the monster played by Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein, the first of the Hammer Frankenstein series.
Colorizing was done by –
A. Scanning the original art into Photoshop
B. Duplicating the original art a couple of times onto a couple of different layers. One layer would stay untouched in case I needed an undamaged version of the original image.
C. The original scan is duplicated again and then colorized.
D. The colorized layer is duplicated and then given a gaussian blur.
E. The three active layers (original, colorized and blurred) and then set to multiply.
F. I then erased out the parts of the original layer where I only wanted color to appear in the image (rather than color with a grey undertone).
G. I adjusted the contrast of what’s left of the original layer so that I get solid blacks and the greys are lighter.
H. I added another layer set to multiply and then added color for skin and the background.
I. On additional layers I added highlights or undertones of color.
I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. I’m especially happy with how little time I spent in Photoshop.
I’m constantly trying to improve my skills in creating color illustrations. I’ve tried a number of techniques and media – colored pencils, markers, watercolors and Photoshop. All of the media have their benefits but so far there’s not one that I would use exclusively. The problem with paint, pencil or marker is that, while the colors might look great on paper, the scans I’m able to get leave something to be desired. The illustrations all need some adjustment in Photoshop. And I try to spend as little time in Photoshop as possible. The program is a black hole of noodling opportunities. I can zoom in and fiddle around getting a perfect look to a bug on a wall in the background of an image that the casual viewer wouldn’t notice was there. The more an illustration is done on paper the less time I’ll spend screwing with it once it’s scanned.
So … I regularly check out the work of other artists and, if they’re doing something I like, I try to add their techniques to my skill set. I recently happened across Adam Hughes’ DeviantArt site and got a bit of a clue about his workflow. It was enough of a clue to try some version of it on my own.
As I often do when trying out new techniques I started with a familiar subject – Frankenstein monsters. The art here is done with cool grey Prismacolor markers and black ink.
Tomorrow, the colorized version.
I said yesterday that I usually have to force myself to stop working on an illustration otherwise I run the risk of noodling at it until I’ve messed it up. One of the dangers of working on art in Photoshop is that you can noodling on the piece in even greater detail and far longer than you can a piece on paper or canvas. With all the layers and the ability to undo the things you don’t like you spend hours on some fussy bit, decide you don’t like it, delete it and then spend a few more hours fussing at it differently. Because I know how easily I can get caught doing that I try to finish the majority of my illustrations before I scan them into the computer. I want to use Photoshop as sparingly as possible.
For this piece I used the program to bump up the color and to add some highlights that I didn’t manage to do on the original. I like the more vibrant (garish) colors but I’m not sure that this is actually an improvement over the original painting.
I finished this painting recently. It had been a few weeks since I participated in the Watercolor Course and I wanted to see what I could do without the time limit imposed by being in class. It took a couple of weeks to do from start to finish – mostly because I could only work on it a bit at a time. Unless the effect you’re going for is a big smeary mess you need to wait for the paints to dry between layers. So I’d get ten or twenty minutes of painting in each day until I finally decided I should stop. I’m a big noodler when I’m doing art so I generally have to decide that I’ve done enough at some point and walk away. I’ve learned that I can mess up a piece with too much noodling.
I like this piece more now than when I did it in class. At the time I was trying for a different result than what I got. Now that it’s been a couple of months I can appreciate the image that I ended up with.
I did say that, when working with a new medium, I tend to fall back on drawing familiar subjects? So, of course, a Frankenstein had to appear.
