The Frog Prince: A Star Wars Twist WIP

Over at CGHub there's a wonderful challenge to illustrate out of the Brothers' Grim stories. Even though I am already working on another challenge piece, I couldn't resist working on something from the Brothers' Grim. I settled down on The Frog Prince, as it's easily one of my favorite stories and has been on a list of projects to illustrate since the start of the year (kinda a resolution list, if you will.)

Initial Sketch

It's no big secret that I am a HUGE Star Wars nut, and while my original intentions for this piece had nothing to do with Star Wars....well...as you can tell by the sketch above it quickly gravitated that way. Originally I wanted to do something a bit darker in theme with the classic story, but I was unsatisfied by my previous sketches and started to lose interest in it. But late in the evening when I was trying to go to sleep I got the idea to do a Star Wars twist to this piece. And well....those inklings we creatives get NEED to be listened too.

Quick Color Comp

So that lead me to searching through some excellent reference sites I had previously tagged for such an occasion, spending most of the morning and afternoon developing a sketch. I decided that despite my tendency to rely on my drawing as opposed to my skill as a painter, that I would go with it. Why not? So I was hoping for a bit of an Arthur Rackham vibe to this (especially since he illustrated so many of the original fairy tales!) I chose to stick to a muted, earthy pallet for this piece...

Finalized Pencil

   

And so I used the sketchbook doodlie as a rough template. Taking that into Photoshop, I set to work using my pen and tablet to free hand sketch out the final composition. I decided I did not like where Padme was in the first sketch, and so I moved her a bit. I'm also taking into consideration type, which is also in the original sketch. I'm not 100% fully committed to the type as of the moment, it's in there more or less for a reminder.

Coloring Process

And after about a day's worth of work, this is where I am currently with the piece. Digital media is still not a strong suit, in my personal opinion, but then again neither was watercolor with I started out.

Pretty happy with where this is right now, so I'll let it be....