flowering clown

Monday, September 10, 2007

For this clown illustration, I wanted to try something different. Keep reading for some of the process I used to create this guy.

First came the sketch.

Now for the coloring. I decided to take a bunch of flowers my daughter had pressed, and I scanned them in at a very high resolution.

Then I brought them into Photoshop and put them all on separate layers and turned the layer style to multiply (which made an almost totally black image). Then I turned all of the layers off except one, and started erasing away the clown shape.

One by one I turned on each layer, which built up the color, and then I erased more away.

Here I switched one of the layers to “normal” and lowered it’s opacity, to lighten the whole thing (it was getting too dark). And then continued to erase.

And finally, once the color was done, I turned on a really dark flower layer and erased it all except for the line work.  And there you have it. Click it for a big version if’n you like.

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Yancy Street - September 10, 2007 - 12:02 pm

Wow. Love this piece Bry….more please?

Cristina Irizarry Santiago - September 10, 2007 - 4:07 pm

Very creative way of doing this clown. No wonder Phil Visher called you one of the most creative persons he`s ever known. Very cool!

jeremy - September 10, 2007 - 7:14 pm

that guy is super creepy until the linework, and the flowers make it creepier…sweet process though

Rob - September 11, 2007 - 9:51 am

Very nice pic. Thanks for the wonderful and detailed descriptions.

mike - September 11, 2007 - 10:20 am

wow! your processes always fascinate me. and i agree with jeremy- that second before last step is super creepy.

Jeremy V - September 11, 2007 - 9:13 pm

Love it Bry, love it.
Such a great process too.

Muffin - September 12, 2007 - 3:31 am

what a fun process and idea for texture. :) It works really really well. I’m looking forward to do the clown.

doug - September 12, 2007 - 6:27 am

I absolutely love this piece. The technique is fabulous and gives one such a wonderful texture and rich sense of depth in surface design. You, once again have taken a sharp left turn at “the new” and made a gem… You win.

Bruna Brito - September 12, 2007 - 11:53 am

Wow! reaaaallly scary. Thanks again for the awesome tutorial!
You manage to make a flower look more scary than a clown…
I’ll try this flower-texture on my lady-on-water to see if she turns out even more creepy!!
beautiful pic Bryan!
b.

bryan - September 13, 2007 - 10:35 am

thanks Yance, I’m going to try this on some more pics in the future.

Cristina, Did Phil really say that? I know he thought I was odd. :)

Jeremy, creepy is as creepy does.

Thanks Rob, I always wonder if it’s worth it to put all the making of stuff up.

Mike, yeah, now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just gone with the second to the last step and left off the linework.

Thanks JV.

Muff, can’t wait to see your clown.

Thanks Doug. You win on the creepy clown contest though. Hands down.

Bruna, oooo, can’t wait to see what you do with it. Thanks!

Cristina Irizarry Santiago - September 13, 2007 - 5:22 pm

Bryan,
Oops, I missed quoted him. But he did say you were one of the “most unusually creative folks we ever hired.” That`s pretty much the same thing…right? lol Here`s the link http://www.philvischer.com/index.php/?page_id=53

Sorry for miss quoting him. Maybe it was me who said that and I mixed my thoughts up. ;)

leslie - February 5, 2008 - 4:31 pm

thats really freakin’ awesome… i never would have known it was flowers! thats beautiful.. it looks like pastels and oil pastels! super awesome… man.. i want to make art

bryan - February 5, 2008 - 10:13 pm

You should make art! Don’t think too much about it, just go for it.

Annou - June 16, 2008 - 1:41 pm

Hi, I don’t live in the US how can I get one of your t-shirts? ty

Gerald - August 28, 2008 - 3:39 am

great tutorial process? Thanks so much for sharing. You’ve definitely had good Patience working with so many layers. But the finale turned out awesome!

bryan - August 28, 2008 - 10:52 am

Hey Gerald, thanks! Once I got in the groove with some good tunes, it just rolled along. :)

Yann - August 29, 2008 - 8:42 am

Thanks a lot for detailing the process that way. A great idea for sure! And the results speak for themselves of course…

Thanks!!

bryan - August 29, 2008 - 11:07 am

Thanks Yann!

Paul Greer - September 2, 2008 - 12:16 pm

This is a lovely insight into a process of producing something wonderful. Textures and cartooning. yup!

bryan - September 2, 2008 - 12:23 pm

Thanks Paul, I appreciate it. I took a look at your sight, love your cartoons, really great.

Alex - September 23, 2008 - 9:04 am

Right, now I just need to press some flowers.

Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Aug. 28, 2008: Begging hat in hand - August 28, 2008 - 7:01 am

[...] Drawn! link of the day] Brian Ballinger presents one of the most unique process presentations to come down the pike in quite a while. [...]

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