Updating a traditional piece.

Even if you paint traditionally, digital can be your friend-

...a friend that can save you tons of time. And with that 10,000 hour rule looming over our heads, we need every break we can get. 

This piece started out as a simple study. After it was finished I couldn't help but think how fun it would be and more dynamic if my drummer was performing and the other toys reacting to the music. Rather than repainting the whole thing, I decided to experiment with just changing parts of the painting. In watercolor this would have been nearly impossible before digital tools. I am one of those 'old school' traditional types. But I don't have to give that up to take advantage of the digital opportunities. It's just another tool. 

Here is the before and the 'repainted' modified images. I only had to repaint the things I wanted to change. This saved me from having to redo the whole painting.

First, I traced the original watercolor and then modified the characters (keeping them to scale),
scanned the image and printed it out on my watercolor paper.

 Once I had my image I made note to the original pallet and painted traditionally glazing and building the colors.

Glazing.

You can see the phantom soldier arm and foot. These will be layered onto the digital image
altering the original watercolor image.

Here is the finished "revised" illustration. I scanned and used Photoshop to all a new layer and merge the two images.

Here is the finished image.
(but I see in this pic, his foot is still a little transparent.... I will have to check on that.)