A found object - thought process and character development

Before I started colouring my final image I wanted to get an idea of how I would colour it. Lately I have been working with a limited colour palette. I have also limited the amount of shading that goes into my imagery because in the past I have added too much to my line work which took some of the quality away from the final image.
Over the summer I made a few pieces that were really restricted in terms of colour, below are a few of them.

That seemed to work pretty well and it was also good to limit myself. Going back to top image of inspiration pictures I seemed to look at a lot of adventure time pieces, I like how each element just has 1 or 2 colours, that could be something to look into.

Click to enlarge 

Above is the final line work for this workshop, not sure if cutting off the umbrella at the bottom is going to be a problem, I feel like because other elements are also out of shot it will be okay but i'll have to see. Whilst thinking about stage two of this module I knew my focus would be on character design and the application of such. After bouncing ideas around with piers I decided that it would be great to make some cartoon title cards that would feature some of the characters I have made throughout this module. This image in particular kind of looks like a title card already and the 'POOF' text along with the faces on the inanimate objects remind me of the title cards from 'The Fairly Odd Parents', examples below.

Taking some of these images into consideration along with my original research I started to colour my image.

The image on the left is the original image with the line work unchanged, I was fairly happy with it but I was still unsure of the brolly in the bottom left hand corner. I felt like because the story originated from a umbrella handle it should play a larger role in the image or at least not be cut off. So on the right is my finished version, I shrunk the umbrella down so it would fit in the image fully without having to be cropped out and I much prefer it like this.

Despite that there are over 10 different colours in this image I still feel like it is minimal and the shading is only used on certain elements which was the desired effect that I was going for. The image is incredibly busy but the vibrant colours do a good job at keeping everything separated. I like that this does look like a title card and I'd like to explore that concept if I have the time, maybe single out the wizard character and sit a title along/ or in his beard.

Looking at The Fairly Odd Parents images which featire the objects with faces you can see that one has green eyes and the other pink, they relate to the characters Cozmo and Wanda who act as the main character's god parents. These characters can change at will and the only way the viewer knows that it is in fact them is by the green and pink eyes that distinguish the two. I wanted to do something similar with my characters as I took the Grey and Blue swatch and applied it to the objects. Over all I am pretty happy with the result but in the future I should be careful of making my image too busy, I should also consider layout more before finalization.

A found object - narrowing it down - MINI workshop series

 For this mini workshop we had to find an object from a museum and find out about it's origins, delve into it's many mysteries and explain why we chose it. Eventually we will be illustrating aspects from this objects story so it had better be interesting. I saw a load a things in the museum that I liked such as Tiki masks, pickled jellyfish, traditional Katana;s and much more. Eventually I narrowed it down to two objects, above on the right is my first choice.

This is a ceremonial dagger from Ladakh, Kashmir, India, it's actual name is a 'Phurba'and it was supposedly used for rituals and things, COOL RIGHT?!
Anyhow these daggers vary in seize and design but there are some comon features that always make an appearance such as a three headed deity or a decorated skull, in this case it looks like both designs are present. The blade was meant to personify a powerful deity who would bind itself to great evil and destroy it. In addition to such the blade could also be used to influence the weather and was used widely during sandstorms

A lot of that information came with the blade in the showroom but I also found a website which talks about different types of Phurba and their origins. Here it is! CLICK ME

Above are a few examples of other Phurba's.
Some designs are really intricate.

My second choice is absolutely fantastic, I literally had no words for this item, I had to read the description to gain any ground.

A Japanese water spirit? Fantastic.

I love also that this was given as a gift to someone I mean i'm all up for joke presents but this is just amazing. It's also incredibly bizarre because of it's placement, It's not like it is on the end of a sword hilt, this would go in your hand regularly whenever it is raining and that makes it even weirder.

After doing some research I managed to find a newspaper article on this exact piece and I can confirm that it is indeed a water spirit named a Kappa. The Kappa is a spirit that had the body of a turtle or frog and a head of an ape, it also came with a turtle like beak for added shock factor. The beast had a Beatles style hair cut and a massive bald patch on the crown of it's head which was supposedly full of liquid that granted strength.

This thing was bloody terrifying but I learnt that if you are to stand a chance against this beast you must first bow as low as possible, the beast will be obliged to do the same thus tipping the liquid out of his crown which will weaken him.

Nice little fact that I read from the article which can be found here... CLICK ME