Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Dia De Los Muertos X Super Mario Brothers

It's time for another Mashup.  This one is Princess Daisy and Dia de los Muertos.  "Daisy de Los Muertos"  It's clever enough for me to illustrate, ok? You want more clever, go visit a g_d damned writer's blog.

At any rate, I want to start doing some "How to Art" posts.  This isn't incredibly in depth, but it shows my process as it happens.  All of this took place over about a night and a half.  One night to get the idea and start a sketch, the next to finish it and then do this write up and post it.

Step one is always the same - if you're going to need reference, go get your reference.  This can come in trillions of forms, but usually that means searching on the internet.  I like to use webcrawler.  Har har har, sorry, bad joke from the 90s version of the internet...  Ok, so yah, go find your ref.  Here's a hint, STOP AFTER ONE OR TWO IMAGES.

Sh_t, I forgot the real step one that's always the same: Put on some dope music.

Step 0. Put on some dope music.

If you go onto a search engine and start digging for the perfect ref, you will take too long.  You will get lost in ref. You will save too many images.  You will lose.  How am I so sure? Well, in many cases, I'm probably wrong, but in more cases than just a few, I know artists/humans - we start looking and it becomes a never ending spiral of BS.  Anything to not start, right? Any reason you can find to keep searching for that perfect pose, profile, hand, foots.  Too low rez? Too grainy? Not pretty enough? You get the picture.

1. Don't be a slave to your reference.
2. If you find something just good enough, stick with it.
3. Don't copy, be inspired, but if you copy, consider the dude/entity that made it.  If it isn't obvious, credit them

In this case, I'm raping nintendo ip.  What's new? Everybody knows who daisy/peach are, so I don't think I'll offend anyone but not saying it.  Oh wait, I did say it.

Step 1.  Ref:

This is the ref I used for the pose. It's not princess Daisy, it's princess Peach but whatevs.
Now that you have a ref pic.  Trace it, draw next to it, close it and do your sketch - it honestly doesn't matter, just get something down.  The quicker you get away from the white blank page, the quicker you'll get to the good stuff.

Tracing is totally not respected, so don't tell me if you do it (kidding I honestly don't care), although SO MANY "REAL PROS" LIGHTBOX SH_T.  Don't beat yourself up if that's how you feel best starting, it doesn't matter if you're happy with your art and it comes out good.  It can be a crutch though, so keep that in mind.

Having said that, I put that peach up there on light opacity and drew over it.  I knew what I was going to do with it and it just seemed perfect.

 Step 2.  Thumbnail or simple sketch:
SUPER duper rough.  I hate rough sketches, so I like to do just a quick proportion check.
After that I just started doing my thing. I left peach under the art but after I got the important bits down, I turned it off and just enjoyed myself.  This part is the best.  I really love these gritty rough sketches.  I care allot about silhouette and payed attention to balancing my black and white areas and detail in good spots.





Plenty of artists do this part better than me, but I'm getting better at it all the time.  Balancing your detailed areas and your black to white masses really makes a drawing look pro or dumb.  Now there are drawings that look rad that are just thin line weights and total consistency, but I like to drip pixels like I was painting with a sloppy brush.

 Step 3.  Do your drawing:


This is my favorite part, the sketch.  I usually go all black and can't be bothered with gray at this point. Gray, you little bitch. Die gray die.  Eat death.


When you're done with the sketch, put that on as a light opacity and go to work.  I like to zoom in WAY TOO MUCH and draw crisp lines.  Some of it's a bit sloppy like that little flag around her legs, but it just seems in character, so I left it.

I added more and more and more SMB (super mario brothers refs) and tried to use them in a Day of the Dead sort of way.

Pipes and mustaches, and piranha plants, and question mark eyebrows, and boo, and fire flowers... you know, all that stuff.

 Step 3.  Finish your projects:


Daisy de Los Muertos.  I added some texture to fit.  I may do some more tweaks on it but she's 90% of the way done. 
(Done enough to post at least)
That's all I got.

Please do drop comments on how it helped you or ruined your life.  I like to hear about those sorts of things.  If there's something you'd like to know more about or whatevs.

cheers,
&Rew.

7 comments:

TontonKopsy said...

Magnifique.
Unique interpretation.
Priceless. This could be part of a new whole series, along with Princess Daisy, zelda, Seamus, etc...

Make it a print, Dammmit ! when will you get a real shop part on your website ?

Dee said...

This so rocks! I love it!

Unknown said...

Moustache top ftw.

Unknown said...

TontonKopsy, alright alright, you got me, I'm on it. I'll put a real shop up tomorrow. I'm working on it right now!

Also, you're right, I really should do day of the dead versions for all the lovely Nintendo Ladies, eh?

&.

TontonKopsy said...

That's my man !
Really looking forward to see & purchase the day of the dead series.

But please let me know : will you handle shipping to foreign countries ? I'm in France, for instance.
Thanks.

Unknown said...

Absolutely. I believe this world is fit for friendly commerce. I'll work on that series and put up some prints as I can. For now, I've got to work on filling the store with the items that I've already got built up.

dickard said...

That....was pretty sweet. The only thing better would be a video with that badass VideoGame dubstep music in the bg.