Chibi Alice

Progress shots of the Chibi Alice in Wonderland pixel doll, in a tea cup. Made on the Obviously Chibi doll base.

Sketching the Idea

This idea stemmed from a CG piece I wanted to make with several of the Alice in Wonderland characters. I decided to do a pixel piece though, so I chose Alice with a tea cup.

I wanted the cup to be tipping over, as though she fell down the rabbit hole again, so I picked a jumping pose from my OC base set.

The sketch is very messy, but it outlines the things I want to include, as well as the overall composition.

Editing the Base

Both the base style and the pose weren’t 100% what I had in mind, so I recoloured the base and drew an arm in, that will hold the spoon later.

Changed the eye style again. Not overly happy yet, but meh. Also blocked the hair shape in.

Hair

Here I’ve laid the basic colour blocks for the hairstyle. Darker where the light won’t hit and lighter where the light is hitting. I decided to go for a pink hue for the hair shadows and made the main colour a lighter peach/yellow.

Added a headband and refined the hair shadows and highlights a bit more here. It’s still not finished, but I’m ready to move on to other things. Moving around the image helps to relieve boredom and keeps an overall refinement.

Tea Cup & Clothes

Traced around the tea cup sketch to get the shape in better view. The sketch was very messy @_@ I removed the sketch for now, so I could work without it getting in the way. The edited base arm was shaded too.

Drew a simple dress with an apron and added a bow to the headband. They’re only blocked in, but it shows the idea. I added a little bit to the back of her hair too, because it looked like a patch of hair was missing at the back XD

Back to the tea cup. I started shading the inside and a little bit outside. Originally, I didn’t plan on adding liquid inside the tea cup, but it was one of those fortunate accidents, so I went with it.

Refined the inside of the tea cup. Dithered the cast shadow from Alice a little at the back so I didn’t have to add another colour. I refined a couple of other little areas too – anti-aliasing one edge of the headband.

Well, I did say earlier I wasn’t happy with the eyes XD So they underwent another change. I also changed one of the skin shadow colours (and thus anywhere else that colour was used). The base of the tea cup was block-shaded too.

Shaded the saucer. It was tempting to add another colour in between the shadow colour and the main colour, because the area to cover was so large XP

More refinement. I narrowed the lip of the cup. Begun adding some of the tea cup patterns. You probably couldn’t tell from the original sketch, but there were supposed to be roses and leaves on there, like those old fashioned tea sets.

Looking much better now. The handle has been shaded and the tea cup is looking more finalised. I’ve blocked in the placement for the first rose.

Details

Some roses finished and more blocked in. I don’t like pink much though >> Leaves and a vine were added around the tea cup handle.

Much better, I like blue ^^ I finished the leaves and vine off as well. Changed the handle slightly at the top.

Back to the saucer again, with more refining. I like the shape a lot better now.

Finished off the saucer for now and anti-aliased the lip of the cup. I reshaded parts of the base of the cup so that the angle changed.

The spoon from the sketch has finally made another appearance, as well as the sugar cubes and leaves. I also began blocking in the little rose pattern on the saucer.

Shaded a sugar cube and most of the rose details that have been added so far. I adjusted the shadows again around the tea cup base and the edge of the saucer.

Changed the colour of the inside liquid, so it looks more like tea. I think it works better with the tea cup, because it’s contrasting. Also finished the roses around the saucer. The leaves on the right have been block-shaded and the shapes tidied.

Finished the leaves and added a cast shadow underneath them. Highlighted the top of the hair and adjusted the sugar cube on the left.

More refinement here. I finished the hair bow, changed the pattern on the headband, moved the hair line up on the left, shaded the dress, added a cast shadow under the head onto the neck and shaded the other sugar cubes. I also threw a couple of sugar cube crumbs/granules onto the saucer.

I’m nearly finished now. The hair has been finalised – I added a few loose strands, following the flow and shape of the hair. The eyes have highlights now and the sugar cubes have sparkly bits, that can either be deemed as sparkles or sugar granules XD Whichever works =B

Finished now ^^ I adjusted the colours again, so they weren’t quite so purple based. Also added some small shadows onto the leaves, the top right of the head and anti-aliased a few more things. Lastly, I added a white outline, so it would stand out a bit better on light-but-not-white backgrounds. And that’s it ^^