Hopper and Eleven fan art PROCESS

Hello! As promised in my last post, I am going to be sharing a look into my process for the Hopper and Eleven (from Stranger Things 2) piece!  I took some photos of the different steps I usually use when creating a piece of digital art such as this.  Hopefully this gives you a better idea of how I create these drawings, and how you could replicate the style if you so choose!

1) First, I drew a sketch with pencil on paper. I usually like to draw traditionally rather than digitally-- it's more comfortable/familiar, and I like having something physical to show for it. Then I took a photo of the drawing and uploaded it onto the computer (I would use a scanner, but I don't currently have one).

2) Next I went over the sketch digitally to create line drawing.  To do this, I created a new layer and set the sketch layer to a lower opacity. As you can see, I then adjusted some of line drawing to fix crookedness and proportion issues (such as making Hopper bigger).

3)I then picked a neutral color that was a little lighter than the lines to fill in the background. This gives me a good starting place for coloring and helps me keep my colors in the same range.

4) Then in a new layer (I have a layer problem by the way...) I did the basic flat colors for the figures. I tried to pick colors that stayed in the same general range of saturation as the background to keep it harmonious.

5) Next I did the same thing with the background-- filled in flat color shapes.

6) The next step probably takes me the longest, even though it doesn't look dramatically different. On a new layer I added all the shading and highlights to the figures and the background. Since this isn't supposed to be a highly-rendered, realistic style, I didn't do dramatic shading.  I mostly just added shadows and highlights to the places that I thought would help give the piece more depth and clarity.

7) Now I should probably figure out how to paint textures myself by hand, but.... I really like overlaying textures onto my drawings. It adds a lot of "oomph" to the image I think!  I started by adding textures to the background.  To do this, I found free images online of wood textures (one for the wall, one for the floor, and one for the cabinet) that fit my mental image of a cabin.  Then I selected the area on my drawing and chose the "Paste Into" option to fill just that shape with the image of the texture. Then I changed that layer to the "Multiply" setting and adjusted the opacity until it looked like it fit with the rest of the drawing.

8) I then repeated those steps using textures for the clothes (cotton, khaki, plaid, and denim materials). Make sure these layers are above the layers with the flat colors and the shading.

9) To add the final touches, I found images online of light streaming through windows and little dust light particles. Then I arranged them where I wanted them and set those layers to the "Overlay" setting and adjusted the opacity. That created the final image!

10) In order to create the animation, I copied basically all the layers I had. Then I went and re-drew and re-colored the arms,Hopper's leg, and the music notes (since those were the only elements of the drawing that were changing). I had to adjust some of the texture layers to fill in the new spaces, but overall it was a lot quicker since most of the work was already done. Then I merged all the layers into the two parts "Frame One" and "Frame Two". I went to File->Export->Save for Web and then saved this final image as a Gif with 256 colors and a "forever" repeating loop.

Voila! There you have it. Easy peasy, right? ;) I had a lot of fun making this picture, and I feel like I relearned/learned a lot (especially how to do the animation-- that took me waaaaay too long to figure out). Hooray for fan art! :D

Stranger Things Fan Art: Hopper and Eleven Dancing

Hello! I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season. This break meant that I finally had some time to finish this drawing of Hopper and Eleven from the second season of Stranger Things! My husband and I really like this show, and I thought this scene was so cute and sweet. :)  This drawing gave me good practice getting back into doing fulling finished drawings (with textures, lighting, etc.).  I'm very happy with how it turned out! :)

I had the idea of turning this drawing into an little two-frame animation from the very beginning. I had dabbled with animating on my old Photoshop Elements 7 quite a few years ago, and I was excited to try it again!  The hardest part was figuring out how to save it to the right file type to get it to actually be animated online. haha  This was such a fun personal project for me! :)

I will do another post in a little while with my process-- I actually took screenshots throughout making this piece that show all the different steps!

Bakery Logo Design

Over the summer I also was commissioned to do a logo design!  A family friend from back home has a delightful and delicious Swedish bakery called "A Little Taste of Sweden" where she makes traditional Swedish cakes, pastries, etc.  She has primarily been working from her home via word-of-mouth and private events, but she decided to branch out into the Farmer's Market and community event world.  In order to do that, she needed a logo for her business to put on promotional materials, cake box stickers, bags, and banners for her booth. She commissioned me to design her logo and then adapt it for banners in different shapes/sizes.  I had never done professional logo design before, and it was a great experience!

This project was a really good learning experience for me as it was very collaborative (there was a large amount of discussion, brainstorming, and feedback between the owner and myself).  First, we discussed her ideas for what she was looking for in a logo.  She wanted something that was simple, that obviously indicated her business was a bakery, and that incorporated traditional Swedish images/icons.  I then came up with and drew approximately 18 potential design ideas based on those requirements.  It was fun and challenging to try and find a readable, clever, and aesthetic way to incorporate all of those elements together! I was very happy with the idea that ended up in the final design-- having the Swedish flag in a slice of cake. :)

After receiving the owner's feedback, I combined elements from several different designs that she liked best (including lingonberry laurels). I drew the final design in a larger, more detailed format, and then scanned it into the computer. From there I re-drew it in a digital format with Adobe Photoshop, and then played around with different color and font options. I created quite a few versions of these and she decided which one she liked best.

When the final logo was created, I adapted it to a vector image in Adobe Illustrator for printing purposes. Then, at the owner's request, I also adapted the oval logo to fit a rectangular banner format, and created a separate, narrower banner design with just the name of the bakery and the Swedish colors.

The owner of this bakery was wonderful to work with, and I loved being a part of this project.  I was able to see a picture of the finished booth that had both banners and it turned out so well! :)

Musical Composer Portraits-- Commission

During this past summer, I had the pleasure of working on a commission for my awesome cousin. She just started teaching music at a Junior High, and she wanted some art to put on the walls of her new classroom.  She asked me to create portraits of some of her favorite composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

First I gathered quite a few reference photos online. I looked up existing portraits (or photographs in the case of Tchaikovsky) of the four men, as well as clothing styles/fabrics/colors/etc. from the time and place in which each man lived.  I then used this reference material to create portrait drawings. My style started out as more realistic, but my cousin preferred a simpler, more cartoon look (which ended up being perfect), so I drew them again.  After getting her approval on the final designs, I scanned the drawings onto the computer and used Adobe Photoshop to redraw them digitally, color them, and add textures to the fabrics.

I had a couple ideas for ways to make the backgrounds more interesting and personalized.  I asked my cousin what her favorite pieces of music are by each composer, and I overlayed the sheet music for those scores to create the background for each portrait. Then I found pictures of the composers' actual signatures and used those to create the name plates.

I am so happy with how these turned out! It was such a fun project to work on, and I felt like I was really able to show my style and abilities.

Inktober 2017: Drawings from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 2)

And finally, here are the last drawings I did for Inktober from book seven, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  This has been a great experience participating in this drawing challenge. I feel like I improved and learned a lot, and I am more motivated now to keep up the habit of creating art regularly again! While I won't be doing a drawing every single day like this (it's been a bit exhausting haha), I hope to be posting art on this blog a lot more now.  :)


This drawing gave me another chance to do some character design. I'm not very familiar with drawing mythical creatures, so it was a bit challenging. I was please with how Griphook turned out!

Day 29: “Well, I need some help Griphook... I need to break into a Gringotts vault.”

Oh how I love Neville Longbottom! haha The idea of him and Professor Sprout fighting the Death Eaters with Mandrakes and other magical plants is hilarious and perfect. I had forgotten about this scene, so I was glad this was on my assigned page for the day!

Day 30: “‘Mandrakes!’ Neville bellowed at Harry over his shoulder as he ran. ‘Going to lob them over the walls— the Death Eaters won’t like this!’”

I wasn't sure how I wanted to do this final drawing. I could have shown the destruction from the Battle of Hogwarts, or shown the trio in Dumbledore's office or with the other survivors. But I thought that Harry, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley all deserved a peaceful rest in the Gryffindor Common Room after all they had been through. It seemed like a great way to end.

Day 31: “The End”
“‘And quite honestly,’ said Harry, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, ‘I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.’”

Inktober 2017: Drawings From Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1)

For the final drawings for the month, I worked on trying to incorporate more background details and making the people really feel like they are in the setting. I was pretty please with how they turned out!  Here are the first few drawings from book seven, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

This drawing of an Order of the Phoenix meeting at The Burrow was fun because it gave me a good excuse to draw some different characters, such as Arthur Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Bill Weasley, Ginny, Weasley, and Remus Lupin (in addition to Harry Potter himself of course).

Day 26: “They were often joined by other Order members for dinner now because the Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquarters.”

It was tricky trying to figure out exactly how to do the perspective on this drawing so you could see Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in addition to the Death Eaters outside of Grimmauld Place. It was good practice for me!

Day 27: “Barely a day passed without one or two people arriving in Grimmauld Place with no other purpose, or so it seemed, than to lean against the railings facing numbers eleven and thirteen, watching the join between the two houses.”

I had never really pictured what young Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindewald looked like before, so I had to go back and read what little description we have from the book on their physical appearance. It was fun to come up with their look and figure out how to make their clothes look older than those belonging to the modern-day characters.

Day 28: “The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow... Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept into her home her great nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.”

Inktober 2017: Drawings from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (part 2)

It was interesting that my last two drawings for book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, showed Harry with polar opposite emotions-- exuberant confidence (from the lucky Felix Felicis potion) and completely shocked grief.


Drawing and trying to shade this greenhouse was more difficult than I had planned for, but getting to draw Harry's jaunty little walk more than made up for it. haha And I was quite please with how my depiction of Horace Slughorn turned out as well-- I think it looks a lot like how I picture him.

Day 24: "Liquid Luck: 'It seemed clear to Harry that this was a whim on which he should act, so he directed his feet immediately toward the vegetable patch, where was pleased, but not altogether surprised, to find Professor Slughorn...'"

This drawing was hard for a lot of reasons.  I wasn't sure how to best draw Dumbledore's death at the Astronomy Tower and Harry's grief without it being too graphic, but so that you could still tell what was happening.  The poses were definitely tricky, and I relied on reference photos quite heavily (which helped a lot-- I highly recommend using reference!).

Day 25: "He did not want to move anywhere... Then another voice said, 'Harry, come on.' A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward."