Artwork for Oregon Asian Celebration

As promised, here is a brief post about my process for working on the artwork for the Oregon Asian Celebration.

This year's dragon went back and forth many times before we decided on a final version. Once a final was chosen, then I could start coloring. For more information about the Oregon Asian Celebration, please visit their website.

Coloring The Year of the Dragon
I actually colored the image parts separately, then combined them on the computer. I didn't write down all the colors I used, so I am going from memory on my colors.

I started by coloring the head. As I had not exactly decided how I was going to position the head, I did not draw in his eyes until after I had attached the head to the final artwork.

I worked in tones of YG11, YR12, YR15, YR04, and YR21, with shadows of YR18 and YR27. The blue/gray is B52 and BG72 with hints of C3 and BV31. The scanner did not pick up all the subtleties. However, I like how rich and vibrant the golds and yellows came out. In testing colors I liked the combination of the vibrant orange with the lime-green color on his fringe.



Next, I colored the globe. This was much easier. I love how the colors came out in this image. I worked heavily with the BG70's family and the green areas were colored with G20, YG11, and BG72.

I really like how the globe came out by itself. I can think of lots of nice uses for this portion of the illustration.

Last, I worked on the main dragon image. You can see from this version how strange it looks without a head or the globe finished. I used the same colors from the dragon's head, then I used B52, YG11, BG72, and many of teh B90's markers for the waves. Again, I accented with BV31 for the grayer areas.

After all the base coloring was done, I carefully drew in the scales with the brush tip of my YR12 and YR14 markers. Then, I held it at arms length and decided which areas needed darkening. I went back with my deep oranges and hints of gray to add shadows.

The final image was tweaked slightly in photoshop for the poster, as the waves scanned in too gray. Otherwise, the poster is fairly accurate to the original scan.

I will be demoing part of the time at the Youth Art Room at the Oregon Asian Celebration. If I am not at our table, then many other fabulous people from Copic will be demoing. I hope to see you there next week!