Improved Textures

I solved the problem I was having with Harley's tights by reducing the opacity on the textures layer. I'm still playing with colour, especially the hair, I like the idea of it being a dirty blonde shade. Although one section of her should be brighter than the rest to add some visual interest, it has worked on other characters such as croc and Ivy. Something on her needs to stand out either the shorts or her hair.

Colouring Croc

I found that layering the scales in shadows or places where the body would naturally curve, helps to create depth.

I changed his design slightly since pre production. I liked that he was curved and had a smooth edge because it made him sympathetic to the female characters. I've made him slightly thicker in the chest so that he looks stronger. I also started playing with colour schemes. He is reptilic so I looked a lizard colourings. I kept to the darker more alligator colour scheme than anything too bright as he is supposed to be dark and menacing. I then played with different scaly textures. I think the lighter green attempt is the most successful. I think it is in keeping with the colour scheme I already have.

Problems with textures

One of the main issues I was encountering with this character was having her hair turn from red to green as it becomes vines. I tried a gradient layer style over the hair texture, I think its the most successful solution so far.

Im still struggling with the colour palette and textures. I think the colours here could work well in the line up with Harley, both characters have fairly dull colour pallets but then occassionaly there is some bright colour. In Ivy's case its her skin, In Harley's case its her hair and eyes. Also the joker will have bright sections of his suit and cat woman has bright either yellow or green eyes to contrast with her black suit.

Harley Textures

Harley seems to be a lot harder to colour than other characters because she has so many small parts and a lot of different textures. I feel the most successful one here is the vinyl on the boots. The hardest part is getting the textures so that they look right proportionally. An example is the fishnet tights as they are a pattern. If the pattern is too big it won't look appropriate.

Some much needed photoshop practice

I changed Ivy's head shape after completing another turnaround project where I found it challenging to actually turn a character around and draw from lots of angles. I tried to draw my characters from different sides and poses during post production. I needed practice with using textures and I needed to finally decide on colours. I also tried lens flares and filers, as well as layer styles. I think the layer styles were the most affective.

Photoshop colouring Practice

I finally coloured the quick drawing I did of myself a few months back. I'm struggling in photoshop so I thought I could use it to practice colouring as it is a simple design. Also I would like a customised banner for my blog and this could be a good place to start.

Textures.

I like this flat graphic style with the single green outline. especially against the red hair. I think however it maybe to flat as my character design is for Stop motion puppets, so I think this colouring style is not appropriate for this.



Im still deciding on what colours to settle on for Ivy. When Emily and Maddy looked at the colour tests I had done they liked the ones that had the natural human skin tone rather than the green. They said when the skin was green, even though I was using different shades, there was too much green and the character was looking flat. So, when I came to experiment with textures today this is the colour scheme I focused on.