Lexie, the fairy
These days, I don't have time to create colored comic strips, this is why I recently started to do only black and white, as in the last HotPanda episode, the job interview. My process on this type of strips is : making the sketch on paper, scanning it or taking a picture of it, making the line art on Krita, adding the speech bubbles and the text with Inkscape. While this indeed spares me some time, you may notice that I draw the strip twice : once for the sketch, and twice with the line art. It does make a clean look for the final strip, but it also kills spontaneity or authenticity of some strokes.
I also missed the mood of my watercolor illustrations I used to do for my bullet journal (june 2019 with music, october 2019 with Halloween in GuildWars2 - my favorite of this selection-, december 2019 for Christmas). I try to draw small things every evening or so in my sketchbook, just to keep me trained. I was wondering how could I turn some of these pencil sketches into colorful illustrations.
Meet Lexie, the fairy (above her, some tries of noses and ears)
And then I discovered a really amazing tutorial which explains exactly how to do this with Krita : How to Turn Pencil Sketch in to Digital Painting in Krita 3.
I tried it yesterday, and Krita on Android makes it even easier. From sketching to coloring, the whole illustration took around 1h-1h30, which is rather quick. I made experiments with painting brushes I barely never use. I wanted a watercolor effect, so I chose the brushes accordingly. In order to mimic what I could do in watercolor, and hence in opposition of what I used to do when coloring digitally, I didn't fill completely the shapes, kept the contour a little bit messy, and even mixed the colors on purpose. This set me free from perfection, and I like the final result which has a fresh and a more authentic rendering.
Lexie is now in color!
The reason I also really like the result is because the colors create a cozy and playful ambiance around this fairy, and this is what I want to show. It also matches much better with my pen-name, Petit Lutin, which can be translated as "Tiny Elf", or "Tiny Gnome", or "Tiny Fairy" in French.
So, here I am, with a new character, Lexie the fairy. The spelling of her name is not definitive : I really like the "Lexi" part but I don't know how to end her name for a "fantasier" style ^^ Do you have ideas?
Unlike my other illustrations or strips (I often draw my personal life), these one will not be copyrighted! 🎉 I will write a little bit more of her background later, but with this fairy, I am willing to create stories that many people can relate. Hope you'll like it.
What do you think? 😃
Lexie's artworks are licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA.
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