Yes that’s right! As mentioned in my earlier blog, Little One is indeed a huge fan of Hello Kitty. She thinks the world of her and began collecting her stuff since she was 11! That’s when her lovely sweet Mama gave her a little plush as a present for her birthday. Since then she’s been hooked! And now she has lots of plushies as well as clothing, shoes, accessories, figurines, snow globes, and you name it. Anything with Hello Kitty she loves. And today, Little One wants to show you a little Hello Kitty outfit she made! She’s agreed to pose wearing it with all her Kitties in background. Have a look!
Fancy Background
Now with some digital art! I started with going through my phone looking for a suitable photograph I could use as a background. Something that explicitly features Hello Kitty of course! Then I came across a photo I took of one of my own stash. a huge box of Hello Kitty plushies I had ordered from Singapore. My what a collection too! I thought it would be perfect as it shows a wide variety of Kitties scattered about the box. With the Procreate app, I blurred the photograph using the Motion Blur option so that the photo looked more dynamic.
Simple Drawing
I thought I’d stick to just a simple drawing of Little One using airbrush. Starting with the face and head, I went on started layer by later for each element should I need to change anything individually without sacrificing the other bits.
Then I went for the body. I like that the head is proportionally so much larger since that is also what Hello Kitty is like. Today, simplicity was the key as I wanted to focus on the catchy background. I don’t think Little One minded that. In fact, she’s finds the background rather cool!
A Little Change
Although I was completed with the drawing, I felt something was not quite right. So what could we do? Seeing that the airbrush painting was quite transparent and still lets the Kitty’s somehow show through, we could afford to make Little One fill up the space more. Great idea as long as the Kitty’s are still visible underneath. The layers were then merged, and I had her expanded. Then I rotated her at a small angle, and that really made a big difference! Now she really pops out amid this mysteriously funky background. And now I’m done! Doesn’t she look adorable in her Hello Kitty outfit?
Little One is certainly proud of her creation and enjoys the background. Combining photographs with illustrations can be quite effective provided it’s done skillfully. One thing I find helpful is blurring the photos a bit to give it that abstract flair. Keeping parts of the painting somewhat transparent is another tip so bits in the background below show through. Here I think the combination worked rather well. It is definitely what I’d do again. WIth photography and painting among my creative hobbies, why not combine the two?
My Kawaii Quarter 