How To Draw Leather Texture The Headless Horseman Sleepy Hollow

Happy Halloween 2011 to all! Equally in previous years, I found some time in my busy schedule to gloat my favorite holiday by crafting another chilling and giddy digital illustration for my girlfriend Whitney. Personally, there's no better setting for Halloween high jinks than a brisk fall night in the New England towns of the northeastern United States. Terminal year'southward illustration, Season of the Witch, took usa to the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, but this time around, Whitney and I have journeyed to New York state to tag along for a midnight ride with the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's archetype folktale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

While the general analogy and coloring process is like to last yr's How'd You lot Do That? for The Elf Workshop, I've added a few new tricks to my bag of treats for Midnight Ride, most notably improved textures and realistic clouds. Continue reading to observe out more almost my process for this year'south Halloween illustration!

Click hither to skip all these words and stuff and become direct to the Midnight Ride illustration in the gallery!

Pre-Production: Inquiry

While most people probably cringe at the notion of doing research of any kind, for me, it is a vital function of the art making procedure. Research doesn't always have to involve sifting through dusty former books in a common cold, quiet library… for Midnight Ride, I watched Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow film, Walt Disney'due south adaptation of the folktale in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and an episode of Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Night?. This was done partly to get into the spirit of the holiday, merely besides to meet how other storytellers and filmmakers have depicted Washington Irving's story and characters.

In addition to studying photographs of horses, split-rail fences, and dying trees, I as well researched the uniforms of Hessian soldiers in an attempt to remain true to Irving'south original description of the Horseman: "the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-brawl, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary State of war." With a decent amount of enquiry and reference in mind, information technology was time to start sketching!

Step one: The Road Not Taken

Halloween Illustration 1

To show how first ideas aren't e'er the best ones; I include this failed offset attempt at the Midnight Ride illustration. This scene would have depicted Whitney and I in a pumpkin patch, with the Horseman charging towards us in the distance. While the layout echoes The Elf Workshop and Christmas Cookies, I felt everything was a bit flat and uninteresting in this drawing… information technology didn't have that dynamic sense of move and activity that I had intended. Plus, I didn't like the notion that we were in real, physical danger of the Headless Horseman, and felt the sketch lacked the fun and whimsical tone of previous illustrations.

Halloween Illustration 2

Despite having scanned and begun coloring of the sketch, I decided to trash this version and go back to the drawing board. Let this be a lesson to all aspiring artists out there: sometimes, it'due south okay to scrap an artwork and starting time over from scratch.

Pace one: Accept two: A Improve Sketch

Halloween Illustration 3

Now this is more similar it! The layout, the activity, and the "camera bending" are much more than dynamic and, personally, more interesting than the previous endeavor. I also like that Whitney and I no longer seem to be threatened by the Hessian Horseman, but rather we are now joining him in his ride through the wooded trails of Sleepy Hollow. I feel this captures the chilling/silly tone of previous illustrations and is another fitting entrant to my Halloween serial.

Step ii: Vectoring and Coloring

Halloween Illustration 4

Since most of these steps were described in my previous How'd You Do That? for The Elf Workshop, I'chiliad going to spare y'all the repetitive explanation and simply tell you that not much has changed in my process of turning the sketch into a vector drawing and adding the advisable colors to the scene using Adobe Illustrator.

Pace 3: Textures!

Halloween Illustration 5

In last year's Christmas illustration, The Elf Workshop, I started to experiment with calculation texture to the background elements. For Midnight Ride, I wanted to go crazy and add texture to everything (in improver to applying the advisable shading and class to the characters and objects)! In item, I wanted to see strands of hair on both Whitney and the equus caballus'south mane, as well as the fabric on the Hessian's uniform, the dying grass on the ground, and the rocks and dirt of the rural trail. But how could I do this with such a limited timeframe to complete the project? I certainly wouldn't accept the fourth dimension to actually paint all the detailed hairs, blades of grass, and cloth stitches that I would desire to see.

Enter: Adobe Photoshop'south Warp transform tool! Using a flat pilus texture found through Google Images, I was able to easily warp the hair to fit the shape and profile of the equus caballus's mane and Whitney's blonde locks, giving an added level of detail to the overall illustration. Using this same warping technique, I added texture to the horse's leather straps, hooves, and coat, while likewise incorporating other textures such as cloth, denim, skin, metal, and wood throughout the piece. In fact, if you wait closely, there'due south fifty-fifty a fiery bonfire in the equus caballus's red eyes, to assist give the animal a more demonic and sinister appearance.

To create the gloomy, blood red sky, I again employed Photoshop's Warp tool on a photograph of clouds and warped it to reflect the curve of the horizon. Cypher too complex, only the realistic clouds, intense colors, and the dynamic Dutch angle of the "camera" assistance contribute to the eerie mood of the illustration.

Step iv: Leaves in the Wind

Halloween Illustration 6

With all of the shading and texture out the way, it's time to include a sense of wind to the artwork. For these digital illustrations, you'll notice that I never use movement lines (or activeness lines or speed lines) that yous might find in comic books and paper strips. I like to create the feeling of motion and air current through objects that are affected by these elements, such equally hair, leaves, habiliment, and et cetera.

Similar to Thanksgiving Interrupted and Season of the Witch, I in one case again used the Trapcode Particular plug-in within Adobe AfterEffects to multiply and disperse thousands of leaves into my scene. By altering the physics and current of air dynamics in the plug-in, I am able to requite the advent that the horse'south trotting is kicking upward the fallen leaves and sending them off into the distance on the howling winds.

Footstep five: Accept a Nap

And there you have information technology… another glimpse into my artistic process! I hope you enjoyed reading my rambling, breathless thoughts equally much as I did writing them! Be sure to check back soon, as I promise to add another Christmas illustration to the gallery in December!

Click here to view the new Midnight Ride illustration in the Gallery!

Happy Halloween!