Taking the (Color) Wheel for a Spin

I first learned about the color wheel in our high school art classes. Over the course of painting our own creative interpretations of this diagram, we learned about the primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and how to mix them to produce the other colors in the wheel, namely the secondary (orange, green and violet--produced by combining two primary colors) and tertiary colors (red-violet, red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet--produced by combining a primary and a secondary color).

a slightly more sophisticated color wheel illustrating the progression from primary to tertiary colors (from artyfactory.com)

What was more interesting to me, however, was learning about the relationships between the colors based on their positions on the wheel (for example, colors directly opposite each other are complementary; colors right next to each other are analogous), and how these relationships can create harmonious color schemes.

(for a more detailed discussion on color theory, check out this site)

Whenever I find myself agonizing over which colors to use in an artwork (which happens more often than I would like, since I usually work digitally and thus have millions of colors to choose from) I turn to these high school art lessons for guidance.

My most extensive and deliberate use of these color concepts so far had been in assigning colors for the various characters of Pedrong Walang Takot.

I began, naturally, by choosing a color for the title character, Pedro. The decision to have him wear red came pretty easily. Red after all, is a color associated with bravery (like in the Philippine flag, for example) and I felt that this bold color suited a bold character.


red for Pedro

Making the devil (Satanas) red was also an easy choice and I liked how this tied him visually to Pedro. In my head, this color connection not only plays with the idea of Pedro's origins (in the story, Pedro's mother, Tona became pregnant only after she and her husband "prayed" to Satan) but also shows how they (Pedro and Satanas) are pretty evenly matched when they finally face each other. I wanted a little more variety though, so I added red's "neighbors" on the color wheel (red-orange, orange and yellow-orange and yellow) to create an analogous color scheme. I incorporated these colors by setting the devil on fire, which also made him look more sinister.



red-hot Satanas

For Pedro's other "opponents" (i.e. neighborhood thugs, reanimated corpses, etc.) I wanted to go in the opposite direction, which I did by using the color directly opposite red on the color wheel: green. Green is red's complementary color, so it provides great contrast, which I think works well to make Pedro stand out in the scenes where he faces these characters. Since there were many of them, however, I needed a bit more variety, so I threw in colors analogous to green like blue-green and yellow-green.

Pedro's opponents in green and its neighbors on the color wheel

I wanted to employ a different kind of color connection between Pedro and his parents. For this, I assigned blue for his father, Sindo, and yellow for his mother, Tona. Those two colors are the same distance from red in the color wheel, so when Pedro, Sindo and Tona are together, their colors form a triadic color scheme. Aside from being bright and vibrant, this color scheme allows these three characters to have distinct colors while still combining harmoniously. I also liked the idea that Sindo and Tona's colors did not make complete sense until Pedro's red came along to complete the triad, which echoes, conceptually, what the first part of the story is about.

Pedro and his parents form a triadic color scheme using the primary colors

I also used color theory as a guide in choosing the colors for a scene that had "bit players." In this scene, I wanted to highlight Sindo and Tona's desperation to have a child by showing them doing the Obando fertility dance even outside the feast where the ritual is normally performed. To make things even more frustrating for them, I added in the background a pair of pregnant women (with their respective husbands) for whom the ritual presumably worked. Since I drew these characters to contrast with Sindo and Tona's situation, I also wanted to achieve the same thing with their colors. To do this, I used a pair of split-complementary color schemes. The scheme pretty much works the same way as the complementary color scheme in providing contrast, but instead of combining two colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel, it combines one color and the two colors on either side of its complement. Since Tona is in yellow, I dressed the two pregnant women in blue-violet and red-violet. The husbands on the other hand, are in red-orange and yellow orange to form a split-complementary scheme with Tindo, who is in blue.

two examples of the split-complementary color scheme

There were, of course, many other color choices I had to make along the way, but having these color assigments set early on made the initial stages of "painting" considerably easier. Since I had less to think about, I was able to play around more with the lighting and other details. What I appreciated more though, was how this color-picking method I employed simply to make my life a little easier actually resulted in more meaningful color choices.

This whole thing, however, is just one small example of the many possible applications of color theory. The color wheel and the concepts associated with it can be used not only in illustration and other visual arts but in practically any endeavor involving color, such as interior design and flower arrangement. Not bad for such a simple-looking circular diagram!

Finding Pedro

Figuring out the illustration style and over-all look of Pedrong Walang Takot took me a lot longer than I had anticipated. Part of it was because I wanted to do something different from what I did in my first book, but much of it was due to the extra pressure I put on myself to get things right. It was, after all, a Lola Basyang title, which meant (in my mind, at least) that my work had to live up not only to the previous books in the successful Anvil series, but also to the 85-year legacy of the Lola Basyang "brand". As such, I really thought about every idea I came up with, carefully considering how it suited the story and, more importantly, how well I felt I would be able to execute it.

One rejected idea that I am still quite attached to is doing the illustrations in a classic Pinoy komiks style. I felt that it would not only suit a story that had horror and action elements, but also be a nice throwback to the days when some of the Lola Basyang stories were serialized in Tagalog comic books. I planned to render the figures in a fairly realistic manner and outline them in ink, then color them digitally, approximating the look of printed materials from the 1950's (including halftone patterns and a few printing errors). Unfortunately, I was not sure if my broken computer could be repaired in time, so I had to let go of the idea. (I got to use it eventually, to some degree, for the artworks I did for Entablado's production of the play R.I.P., which was written by Severino Reyes--the same person behind the Lola Basyang stories.)

this illustration for Entablado's R.I.P. was done in a komiks style similar to what I had in mind for Pedro

Although I let go of the komiks style, I still wanted to do draw the figures realistically (at least as realistically as I could manage) as I felt it would provide a nice contrast to the absurdity of the story. I was not, however, entirely confident that I could pull this off just by drawing from imagination, so I needed photo references. I actually wanted to cast people as the different characters and have them act out the scenes, but of course that would have taken too much time and effort. Fortunately, I had amassed quite a collection of photographs from the productions I was part of in college. These came in handy when I was doing my early studies for the book, particularly in the character design for Pedro.

The person I had the most photographs of happened to be James Jumalon. He starred in several productions I was part of, and we also did a few photoshoots for various personal school projects. As such, I pretty much had photos of him with all the poses and facial expressions I could ever need, which made him the most convenient choice to be the reference for Pedro. And though I did not plan to directly copy an actual person's face for any of the characters, the fact that James came pretty close to looking like the Pedro I had envisioned sealed the deal.

photos of James Jumalon on one of the reference sheets I used for my early studies

an early study for Pedro, directly inspired by the bottom left photo in the image above

With a suitable peg for Pedro, as well as research materials on the period I chose to set the story in (Philippines, late 1800's to early 1900's--though I was not strict about depicting it exactly), I began making more studies for the characters and certain scenes in the story. At the back of my mind, however, I still felt a bit unsure about the direction I was going.

an early study for one of the scenes in the story

A friend of mine confirmed my fears. Since I knew she was artistically-inclined and also had some illustration experience, I showed her my studies and asked her for feedback when we met for lunch one day. She said that what I had so far may not be interesting enough, visually, especially for a children's book. She went on to suggest that maybe I should try a more stylized look.

So I went home and made lots and lots of sketches, this time trying to exaggerate the characters' features. I ended up liking the new, slightly stylized look I was able to come up with, since I felt that the exaggerated features would also aid in injecting a bit of humor to the illustrations which, in turn, would slightly offset the scarier elements in the story. Since I was, by then, also running out of time, I decided to just push forward with this style.

some of the sketches I did when I was trying out a more stylized look

Although I still used a lot of photo references, particularly to get certain hand poses right, I avoided using any more photo references for the characters' faces so I would not be limited when doing their facial expressions. Over the course of doing the preliminary sketches and cleaning up the line art, however, the slightly stylized, exaggerated look I started with somehow slid back into something closer to realism. As such, some of the illustrations ended up awkwardly between realistic and stylized, which I was not too happy about. I was pretty happy with most of my coloring work though, despite the fact that the style I used ended up resembling the one I used for my previous book. I hope the coloring on the finished artworks (some of which can be found here) makes up for the awkwardness of some of the drawings. (And in case anyone is wondering how I managed to color the illustrations that way, my computer did get repaired in time.)

I still needed something special for the cover though, and I found the inspiration for it in our college yearbook, of all places. I am not sure about the details, but from what I understood, my high school classmate, Jason Latorre, got an A for something (a paper?) in a class under the dean of the School of Management and decided to immortalize it in his yearbook creative photo (with the actual dean posing beside him). I felt that Jason's photo would be a good starting point for capturing the smug and slightly mischievous expression of a character who would simply shrug off (or perhaps even laugh at) encounters with reanimated corpses, gruesome ghosts and even Satan himself (whom I subtly included in the background).

Jason's yearbook photo and the cover art it inspired

It took a lot of hard work--and more time than the publisher initially gave me--to finish all the artwork for the 32-page book (plus the cover and bookmark). And then it took even longer (more than a year) before the book (along with the other four from the new batch of Lola Basyang books) got published. The hard work and long wait, however, paid off in more ways than I could have ever imagined. Having my first ever book sigining session at the Manila International Book Fair, seeing my work on the shelves of National Bookstore branches, and witnessing a little boy asking his father to buy Pedrong Walang Takot for him were among the highlights of the previous year (probably even my entire life).

I will truly be forever be grateful that Pedro and I found each other.

About this blog

The Tumblr site I created almost a year ago grew out of a desire to have something better than a hastily put-together Multiply site as a portfolio. I decided early on to have it feature my illustration projects exclusively, then further narrowed it down to only children's book illustration. The site is pretty simple and straightforward, but I think it works just fine for its intended purpose.

Its portfolio format, however, has also made it somewhat static and therefore unconducive to frequent repeat visits. I wanted something more dynamic -- something that I can update more often and allow me to share more than just selected images of my works and their corresponding (short) descriptions.

So I started this blog.

Whereas the Tumblr site only has selected children's book illustrations, this blog will also feature my other illustration projects, as well as my graphic design works and my designs for theatrical productions. More importantly, I will also be sharing the process that some of these projects went through, including (but not limited to) the the techniques I used, the reason behind certain choices I made, and occasionally even the ideas that I eventually scrapped. All these, I hope, would lead not only to greater interest in and appreciation for my work, but also help others with their own work as well -- the way many other artists' blogs have helped me with mine.

A couple more things:

I chose "Sketches" as my blog title because the word "sketch," as a noun, has relevance in both visual and performing arts -- the two fields I usually create for. And whether I'm illustrating a story, designing a set or whatever, the word, in its verb form, is what I do to begin fleshing out my ideas. Plus, I plan to post actual sketches in this blog too.

That monkey on the header is based on Elliot, a stuffed toy I have had since I was a baby. He has become a mascot of sorts and has even been used as a prop in a few of my projects. He was actually nameless until about ten years ago, when I found him beside an old E.T. stuffed toy and decided to name him after the boy who befriended the extra-terrestrial in the movie.

So there. Welcome to my blog!