Nightmare Before Christmas' Sally

Happy Halloween
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I've had a crush on Sally ever since I first saw her on the silver screen back in '93. She hasn't aged a bit. Because she's some sort of undead Raggedy Anne reanimated construct with autumn leaves for blood. And those sorts of people don't age the way you and I do.


The PAINTING PROCESS of Sally




I started off with a sketchy pencil drawing that turned out pretty good. I thought it would make a nice watercolor illustration.



The only problem was the pencil drawing was in my sketch book. Not the best kind of paper for a watercolor illustration. Not to worry for we live in the 21st century!!! I scanned in the pencil sketch and printed it out on hot press watercolor paper using my old Epson 2200 printer.

In Photoshop I colorized the gray pencils into beautiful sepia tones. This will let allot of warm under tones pop threw the final painting. Also I think the archival inks of the printer blend with watercolor allot better than graphite. Depending on the effect your after.



And presto! The sketch is now ready to be painted. There was a time when I would have had to use transfer paper to trace the pencil sketch onto the watercolor paper. Let us be thankful those days are long gone.



Using my figma sakura brush pen, I lightly drew thin black lines onto Sally. This really solidifies the drawing and adds a little more dimension. Not sure how well that shows up in this photo. But believe you me, there is greater dimension... oh yes. ^_^



I started with her skin. It was the largest area of color. The rest of the colors would have to serve the blue skin. I tried a few different mixes of blue before I got it right. Cerulean and this light greenish stuff worked the best.



Having proper reference is a big help. Thank you Sally doll.
Now that the blue was in place... Alizarin Crimson for the hair. A little Cadmium Red on the top parts where the lighting would hit the strongest. Yellow Ochre mixed with this and that for the dress. And we are almost there.



Lastly I added some Cobalt Blues and even Ultra Marine blues for shadow and dark accents.

And I was done!!! Yay!!! Then I had to hall @$$ off to work so I wouldn't be late. Time just gets strange and flies all over the place when your painting. I got to work on time (more or less) and scanned in the final Sally Watercolor Illustration.

I just realized this is my first How To on this blog. Woot!!!

I was super happy to have done a watercolor with real watercolor! Now I just want to do another preeeety bad.

Until next time this has been Matthew Armstrong saying: "Happy painting and God bless."