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Writer's pictureKevin Roeckl

Popeye portrait in progress 7 - A color surprise...

Even with my trained eye, sometimes colors surprise me. In Annie’s photo it looks like a pink patch inside Popeye’s nostril. But want to know what color that actually is?


1

Annie’s photo.

I was getting ready to work on Popeye’s nostril, the last thing left to finish his face. I wasn’t sure exactly what color pencils I’d need to do that pink patch. Pink of course, shading to brick-red for the darkest part, I thought.


A detail of the reference photo of a horse, showing the muzzle area.


2

When I want to see exactly what a color is so I can choose the pencil color closest to it, I “sample” it in Photoshop. I was so surprised how much darker the red was than I expected, I sampled it twice to be sure. 

Are you surprised too?


A close up of the horse's nostril in a photo, with sampled colors


3

A scan of the portrait as I was getting ready to work on that nostril. The only thing left to do to finish Popeye's head.


Detail of colored pencil portrait of a Standardbred horse, in progress

Portrait of “Popeye” for Annie W.

Prismacolor pencil on “Steel blue” Canson paper

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