New Treatment for Vibrant Colors on Shadows - Check the PSD/File!

Hey everyone!

Here is the 'Mannequin' process video, file, and brief insights. These kinds of articles are often split into two parts: the concept, where I share the idea behind the piece, and the execution, where I explain the technical aspects of the illustration's development. I hope you find this useful, as always.

Concept

While looking at random pictures, I saw an old picture of a woman sewing. From that point, I thought it would be interesting to create a situation where two characters were sewing a giant evil plush, similar to the plushes in Akira (an animation movie). Eventually, I chose a less complex composition where the main character was inspired by an old sewing machine model. The secondary character was meant to be inspired by a new model, a bit more modern and cute. However, I thought it would not be necessary to have both. Instead, the secondary character would fit better as a product or doll kind of concept, in which the 'Pinocchio' type story would bring some kind of guidance for the audience to find familiarity.

I must say, there is plenty of visual information on this specific topic, from all the tools sewers and tailors had, to some steampunk-inspired concepts. If you want to try out a similar concept, you will find a lot of nice references. The list looked like this:

• Ref: Sewing machine.
• Color: Black, yellow, red.
• Action: Main character sewing a white dress on a live mannequin, one old and dark, serious, and the other happy but odd, like sick, cute.
• Costume (street, casual, actual): 1890s female dress or uniform, sewing props (Sewing machine, Scissors, Seam ripper, Measuring tape, Tailor's Chalk or Fabric Markers, Pins and pincushion, Iron and ironing board, Thimble, Needles (hand sewing), Serger (overlock machine)).

Execution

I've found plenty of useful references that helped me choose a pose for the main character. I wanted to portray her focused on working, yet suggest the Singer sewing machine shape subliminally with the figure of the character, the dress, and the chair. You will find out this particular problem addressed in the first few minutes of the process video.

The rich amount of tools used for this particular profession allowed me to explore different ideas, like the hair of the secondary character being the tape measure. Also, the small details in the sewing machine fitted perfectly with the style of the main character's dress, adding new layers of information related to the original reference.

Colors (Check the PSD)

My approach with colors was particularly different in this case, as I added soft strokes of cold colors (blue, purple) over the black dress, distinctive yet dark enough to keep the black direction of the dress.

Additionally, I played with the colors of the shadow layer. Often I keep the color of the shadow under a very desaturated and not so dark tone, but this time I wanted to push shadows with different tonalities, especially for the colorful shapes like yellow and red. I kept the shadows in the dark desaturated mostly as I already added some color information previously.

As a final touch, I used some cold colors for the light on overlay mode, these mostly applied in small portions of the dress. I did a similar treatment to the mannequin but a bit less complex. You will see this application way clearer in the PSD file.

Conclusion

I got great inspiration from an artist on X called @askziye which I highly recommend checking out. It is important to maintain a process as a signature, but it's also useful to approach techniques from different artists just to come up with new ends and learn new approaches. I hope you enjoy the process! Thank you for your support.