Snow-White and Rose-Red: My Drawing Process

I like drawing pictures from stories and fairy tales, and the inspiration for this piece is the story of Snow-White and Rose-Red (unrelated to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves). It's a lesser-known fairy tale, but one of my favorites. For those of you not familiar with it, you can read it here: http://www.tonightsbedtimestory.com/snow-white-and-rose-red/

I used Sketchbook Pro and my Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet, both courtesy of the Instructables team, who awarded me a prize in the Halloween drawing contest. :D

Step 1: Character Design

I don't really have a consistent method of drawing, but this time I decided to sketch out the characters first and try out a few different designs. The design I liked best for Rose made it through to the final product, but Snow changed pretty drastically. 

Step 2: Rough Sketches

For the first bit, I kept everything pretty vague and focused on positioning everything.

Step 3: Rough Lineart

I then went over the rough sketches and tightened them up, adding details and such. I left the bear alone, because I was planning to draw him with a different technique than the girls.

I couldn't figure out what to do with Snow's hands for a while. I had wanted her to be touching the bear's fur, but I couldn't get that to work with the angle she was standing at, so I stuck some flowers in her hand... in the end she wasn't holding anything. Hands are always tricky for me. :-/ 

Step 4: Coloring Snow-White

For coloring Snow, I used PaintBrush 2 to lay out all the colors, then smudged them a bit with the Smudge Round Bristle Brush on low strength and opacity. I also used the Airbrush tool for some of the shading. Oh, and I tweaked the lineart a bit more while coloring, as you can see by the lack of flowers in her hand. :)

Step 5: Coloring Rose-Red

I used the same technique for Rose, though I spent a lot more time on her hair than I did on Snow's!

Step 6: Drawing the Frame

This was the first time I've drawn a frame on one of my pictures. The Symmetry tool was immensely useful. :) The roses relate to the namesakes of the two girls. 

Step 7: The Bear and the Background

This part was a bit tricky for me... I wanted the bear to be a bit subtle, like he was just kind of lurking in the shadows (he's actually the good guy, even if my drawing implies otherwise). I built up the fur with several different layers, and made the eyes and nose more detailed than the rest of the bear. 

Step 8: Final Touches

I added some more shadows, changed the color of the background behind the frame and added some texture to it, and tweaked a few other things that were bugging me (Rose's hairline, for example). 

That's it for now! I hope you enjoyed reading my Instructable. Sketchbook Pro is a fun program to use, and I think I'm finally kind of getting used to it. :)

For more of my artwork, please visit my website! I've actually started updating the blog page semi-regularly, though I don't know how long that'll last...