Let’s all sing like the birdies sing
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.
Let’s all sing like the birdies sing
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet

Let’s all warble like nightingales
Give your throat a treat
Take your time from the birds,
Now you all know the words
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.


This month's YCH was inspired by Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, though I wanted to put my own spin on it so instead of birds we've got showgirls dressed like birds. ^.^ Each one is perched on a swing matching her colors, singing the song above to the audience and her avian friend. It would for sure be a very cute show would it not?

This project was also an experiment. I have been wanting to try combining my traditional art with some digital tricks to help me achieve certain things with my art. While I still love and pride myself on sketching, inking and coloring all my art by hand, sometimes there are limitations on me that come with that territory. Things like being stuck working within certain dimensions due to paper size, having to draw characters super tiny and losing tons of detail to make them fit, or just not being able to get the dramatic lighting that I want. I have been quite frustrated for a while now with these things but I have come to realize if I want to grow, I have to push myself out of my comfort zone and habits and try some new stuff. So, that's what I did here. Its far from polished but that's just how it is when you're trying something new, you have to embrace the suck for a while before you start to get good at it.

Each picture is actually four separate layers. Everything is hand drawn and colored. Background and swing, each drawn once. And then each character drawn full size on another sheet of paper. And finally, her tail is it's own piece so that it can be layered behind the other three. I brought them all together in Photoshop to make something that, had I done it on my regular paper, would have been tiny and much less detailed.

While I do like the freedom this gave me in some terms I also have things that I dislike about it that will need more work next time. And I also learned that I don't save a lot of time by doing one background because it all gets spent elsewhere doing all the cleanup work after scanning. So, I think in future projects, no more than two layers. I would have liked to have added some additional shading on the characters for more contrast but I had already taken so long with everything else and I simply wasn't going to have time to do it all. But I'm keeping this stuff in mind for next time. I do have a personal piece in the works that I'm trying this same technique with, so now I know what to do and not do. lol

Anyway, I hope these still look stunning because they were very labor intensive, both at my art desk and at the computer. lol

Chausiku was commissioned by and her bird friend is a Blue and Yellow Macaw.

All characters © their owners
UNLESS THIS WAS MADE FOR YOU, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO REPOST!


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