Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my paintings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
I've always been a big fan of the LINE characters, which if you weren't aware, are from the chat app, LINE. The app is mostly only used in Japan, so I don't really use it much, but the characters are so cute that we even visited the LINE Friends store when we first went to Tokyo!
Which btw you can read more about here
Our favourite character among the LINE Friends is definitely the little ducky named Sally! But I noticed that because Sally is so small, she typically not in the limelight in many pictures and wallpapers.
Source: Line Friends
Which is a real shame, because she's (arguably) the cutest! So I decided to draw a piece with Sally as the main focus! And upon researching, I found quite a few Sally pictures that I really liked, and had the idea to make it into a "photo collage" of sorts, with 4 frames of Sally and the other Line characters!
Some of the pictures I found were these:
Source: Wallpaper Cave
Source: pinterest
Source: pic.linefriends.com
Source: Happy Postcrossing Shop
Source: LINE Friends Pic
Anyway, with these in mind, I got to work sketching!
This was the bottom half; and I had to redraw the bottom right frame because the size was off.
And this was the final sketch!
I combined some of the pictures together with other snippets I found here and there. It was a real rabbit hole I sunk into, looking at all sorts of LINE pictures and wallpapers. But they were all really cute and colourful so I didn't mind one bit! 😄 I was kinda spoilt for choice on which pictures to choose.
First things first, I outlined the frame lines so I could make sure that none of the frames exceeded them. I didn't go for the usual horizontal frames and made them uneven because I thought it would look more interesting.
Then it was time to outline the characters themselves! As well as erase the sketch lines.
Next came time to paint! I think this was the first time I tried gouache, so I took some time to mix the right colours, especially for Sally's shadow/highlight - the slightly darker yellow. And I think it turned out pretty good! I did however, make a blunder by impulsively testing out the colour on the actual piece itself. I thought it would be okay since I was gonna paint over it, but alas, that yellow splotch could still be seen.
This was after filling in the rest of the colours for Choco and Brown! And outlining once more. I used markers for Choco's pajamas and I might've used the wrong shade because it turned out darker than I anticipated. The headband looked perfect though.
For the backgrounds I used my regular watercolours, and decided to have a different colour for each frame. I tried my best to cover up the yellow splotch but this was the best I could do. So I just finished it off with writing Sally & Friends since that frame was a little empty on the side.
Sorry for the reflection on the outlines in the bottom left.
Overall I think this piece turned out pretty good! The lines were really clean, and apart from a few mistakes here and there, the characters were pretty much perfect. I especially liked how colourful this piece turned out to be, and that I managed to get the colours almost exactly right considering it was my first time using gouache.
I posted this piece on the lineapp subreddit just for fun. I didn't expect anyone to really see it since it's not very active but I got quite a few nice comments on there so yay!
There are so many more Sally wallpapers that I would like to try replicating some time. I think if I did that my wall would be entirely covered with Sally paintings! Which tbf would be really nice and cute too! Maybe I'll put my own spin on them and try out different styles. We'll see!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
