Once More! With Feeling!

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And now for the longer explanation of the artwork itself for those interested:

After what feels like an eternity away, I wanted to "come back with a bang," of sorts. And well, I hope this artwork looks like "a bang" to you all because it's what I came up with! 😂

This isn't quite my usual "artwork flavor" for a few reasons, aside from me wanting "a bang" as mentioned. Namely, instead of starting from scratch, I started with this coloring page from DestinyBlue and modified it to be "more me" both literally and just in terms of the art style. (And I changed the halo to a six-point star mostly because I didn't want to accidentally make it look like a memorial post or something when I post this in other places.)

I have always loved Blue's work and I did think I might save some time doing that (and maybe it did but I ended up taking way too long on this anyway for other reasons 🫣) but my main motivation for that decision was actually how involved with the Coloring Community I became while I was away (more details on the specifics in that blogpost I mentioned). And for what it's worth, going forward I think incorporating more coloring/coloring community content into what I do would be good for me, I just have to find the right balance and rhythm to it. Anyway, after I had the page lines to my liking, I printed it out—including a dozen smaller versions on cheap cardstock, some of which you can see peaking in on the corners! I wanted ample opportunity to practice to hopefully avoid disaster on the final version, and suffice to say I did in fact end up really needing the practice for what I wanted to achieve. 😅 [And if you're really interested, my Ko-fi Members have access to the full array of thumbnails.]

Since the recent resurgence of adult coloring has had a focus on using various techniques to do a lot with simple, "cozy" pages, I wanted to lean into that idea. That's not my typical preference for coloring pages (as I think I've explained somewhere before I like to keep things pretty basic and save the complicated stuff for my own art) but I did want a bang after all, and it felt right to sort of play tribute to the community that gave me something more positive to focus on instead of how crummy I was feeling otherwise (again, more details about that in the blogpost).

In hindsight it probably would have been faster to pick a well-established technique/trend for the coloring, and I did consider that. But I more or less stuck with my instincts because I was a little worried about "blending in too much," if that makes sense.

And my first instinct, more or less, was to take inspiration from a lovely palette that pops up in Blue's other artworks a lot. It's a lovely palette anyway, but I also thought it would be a good way to keep the palette more limited and still come out with something rather striking if handled correctly.

That is also however where "needing" two pages of practice thumbnails came in because this is not the kind of approach I'm used to taking, especially with traditional media and in tight spaces. 😅 But I really wanted to keep this project as traditional as possible, and in particular I wanted Ohuhu markers to be more or less the focus since one of the starting goals was to be able to make a proper "I'm back," post on Reddit and r/Ohuhu was my most active place before the suspension. So the thumbnails were mostly focused on first getting the "correct" gradient of markers (+ pencils tp enhance the texture in the hair), and then finding my rhythm for exactly how to use them—Placing shadows, speed between blends and color placement, focusing on one color or the other in certain spots to create at least some illusion of surfaces that would be different colors under normal lighting (keep the skin lighter than the hair and dress, for example), and so on. I did have DestinyBlue's original artwork to give me some ideas on the shadows, but there was still quite a lot that I had to essentially just "feel" my way through. I did eventually get "comfortable enough" to tackle coloring the girl on the larger, nicer printout, and fortunately it went well!... And then hit a little bit of a wall when I realized I had given exactly 0 thought to the background and had only vague ideas at best for what to do with the wings. 🫠

Since I had such strong lighting already for the foreground, what ended up making the most sense for the background was to just keep it simple. So the darkest purple-y blue marker I was using took the lead and I used a combination of suggestive shading and separating the "wall" and "floor" by texture as best I could—I stuck with the brush tip for the floor and used the chisel tip as much as possible for the wall with no real effort to hide the blocky streaks. (And in hindsight, that might have worked better for a wall texture if I had used the chisel tip going from side-to-side inside of top-to-bottom, but oh well...)

The wings proved more problematic and aside from life things and some self-doubt getting in the way, they were probably the thing that slowed my progress down the most. And more thumbnail testing wasn't really helping. 😅

At this point, I decided to take a break and work on some other things for a bit. I didn't really want to add to how long it was already taking, but I also didn't want to try and brute-force my way through and end up feeling like I'd ruined what I had, either. 🤷‍♀️

I also scanned what I had as a backup in case I did end up ruining it, and later (now with fresher eyes) tried experimenting with the wings digitally. I did have to be mindful of what I can and cannot translate between digital and physical, but I think that change of format really helped.

I landed on an idea I had tried but wasn't super sure about with the traditional thumbnails: If the wings are painted anyway, why not rainbow splatter paint? The original test felt too flat and "tacked on," though, so If I was going that route, it needed some serious finessing.

And I don't fully remember how I arrived at this conclusion, but after mulling it over I thought I could try something inspired by Ccamilla Derrico's signature drippy style. Clearly this idea won me over, but it did still take some deliberation both digitally and physically to really get what I wanted. 😮‍💨

After more thumbnail testing, the final "mix" for the wings/paint was a white (Nahuku) paint pen base (to cover up the background marker color), mostly the Nahuku colors you see along the top with some refinement using the Languo pens on the right, then an attempt to brighten up the colors with the additional Languo pens on the left because some of my color choices turned out more muted than I wanted. And I ended up with a few more back-and-forth layers of both Nahuku and Languo partly for color placement and blending reasons, but also because the Languo created some funky texture work I was not super successful in trying to tame. 😅

That whole process was incredibly nerve-wracking and while I'm not 100% sold on how the color placement turned out on the paint bucket and some more minor things, I was ultimately kind of relieved that it came out as well as it did! 🙌 Especially since, with that part mostly to my satisfaction, that left me with largely just finishing touches.

I used a blue hard-brush fineliner to touch up some edges and go over parts of the printed lines that were looking just a tad more grey than a true black, white Languo for the shine in the eyes, and then the thing I was the least sure about—Taking Languo pens to most of the lines for the hair instead of leaving them black.

That was something else I tested digitally and it looked really good there, but it didn't turn out as well in some of the thumbnail tests, so I was torn, particularly on the ones closer to the face. But you can see that in the end I just went for it anyway, and while it's not as punchy as the digital version, I still think it was the right move in the end. 👍

And after alllll of that, one final challenge awaited me: Capturing the fruits of my labor to share. (Well, and figuring out the title, but long story short, given the circumstances, since Blue's original art is "Paint Your Wings" and this piece is sort of a "phoenix rising from the ashes" moment for me, "Wings Repainted" is meant to be feel a bit like "Wings Restored" or "Wings Reborn" without being quite as on-the-nose about it.) I anticipated having issues with color accuracy, but I did not anticipate that 1. I would not have the mental energy to clear the junk off my nicer scanner to mitigate this and 2. The idea of taking an actual photo with a flat-lay of (most) of the supplies I used and maybe squeezing the thumbnails in somehow too would be as appealing as it was. (Maybe since it's been so long since I've posted a traditional piece? I'm not sure.)

Suffice to say, I took the photo and then I had to do some not-insignificant fiddling with it in Photoshop to try and balance out various aspects of the lighting, the colors, the contrast, etc. And I promise I have done my level-best to get the final image you see as close to "true to life" as I am personally capable of without over-doing it. I just want you Sparklers to see as close to what I see IRL as is possible, not create "results" that would have been soooo much easier to just make digitally from the start. 😵‍💫

It's still slightly off, but it is much closer than where it started and if I let myself keep tweaking it, as much time as it's already taken to get to this point, the poor thing may well just never get posted, so I had to stop myself somewhere. 😅

Still! All things considered, it would be safe to say I love how it turned out, flaws and all. 🥰 I may not be happy with how long it took, but I think I was more worried I wouldn't be happy with the results than I wanted to admit, and the extra time was necessary to make sure I could live up to my own expectations. And I won't get too far into these extra weeds, but that goes for writing this description, too, which also ended up taking WAY longer than I really wanted. 🫣 It is partly because I haven't done this in a while, but also it may not seem like it, but I really did try to condense everything down to hit the specific details I wanted to and not get too terribly bogged down with "storytelling fluff."

Which, for the record: I bother still writing these with detail at all both for the few people I know are still out there that appreciate it, but also I genuinely just can't help myself. 😂 There's usually quite a bit that went into a piece that you can't see in the final product that I'm compelled to explain and it can be helpful for Future Me if I need to remember parts of a process I haven't done in a while. And since I'm not in a position to make a video about every piece talking through the details, this is my next-best option. (Even if I often get on my own nerves trying to sort out the length...)

On that note though, I think I have finally covered everything I wanted to here. And I'm not the greatest at ending these at the best of times, let alone after such a gap, so I'll just leave you Sparklers with a reminder that you might want to check out the blogpost I mentioned at the beginning if you're still curious about where I've been, and a genuine thank you to Sparklers that have followed me for a while and continue to stick around even when I disappear for a while. 🫶

Hopefully it won't be quite as ridiculously long before you Sparklers hear from me again, but either way, take care of yourselves and stay sparkly, okay? 😉 ✨

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Original Coloring Page © DestinyBlue

Finished Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

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