Attention all froods*, do you know where your towel is? Get it handy because today is Towel Day! In celebration, I have put together two digital coloring scenes that have a Hitchhiker’s theme to them. The first one is featured here, Polka Dot Pals Douglas Don’t Panic, and is a freebie for today only at Whimsy Stamps.
*Frood is a common slang word that means someone who is very together, often paired with the term ‘hoopy’ as in: “a hoopy frood”.
I have enjoyed coloring this one while listening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I actually started listening to it when I was drawing the scenes. Drawing, digitizing and preparing the image, plus coloring and adding light elements to the card was well within the time frame to complete the book too. It was enjoyable.
For those who are Douglas Adams fans, you’ll recognize several tributes on my project including the towel, “Don’t Panic”, 42, fish and Millyways* elements. This hitchhiker is also particularly a literary fan because he has four eyes.
* If you’ve done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Millyways, the restaurant at the end of the universe? – Bastablom Executives
This card was assembled with black foam tape, a must have! The Shaker Maker Foam Tape – Black is perfect on darker cards and blends in well so it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb as the white would do.
Between the layers, I added two Pear Blossom Press EZ-Lights and taped them in position to light up the gems on the front. The cardstock layer just behind the image was cut in the shape of the gem so it would allow the light to shine through. The shape also keeps it contained so only the gem glowed.
Looking at completed project, you have two choices to go and the gems will light the way. Choose to go LEFT for FISH and the left gems will light up.
Choose to go RIGHT to Millyways and the right side gems will light up. This has been a fun interactive card and is even better in the person. In the dark, you can see how much the gems light up – below I’ve pressed both signs to show the left and right side lit up.
You’ll find both Polka Dot Pals Trillian Towel Day and Polka Dot Pals Douglas Don’t Panic as freebies for today only over at Whimsy Stamps. After today, they’ll be available to purchase. Please respect the artist’s copyright and send your friends and followers to Whimsy Stamps to download the images themselves and don’t distribute the images even after they are no longer freebies. Thank you.
I have limited quantities of the retired set Polka Dot Pals Add-on Faces clear acrylic set that was released at Little Miss Muffet Stamps. All my extra inventory was stored away and I was able to find these. They are available on eBay until all quantities are sold. They will not be re-ordered or restocked. (I will delete this post once all inventory is sold out.)
Polka Dot Pals Add-on Faces (retired Little Miss Muffet Stamp) Buy it on eBay HERE
I’ve grabbed a handful of the Polka Dot Pals sets to create this scene featuring Polka Dot Pals Khadija. I’ve actually used six different Polka Dot Pals set! They’re all listed at the bottom of this post.
Two videos were recorded showing how I colored the hair and the face – one is posted to my YouTube channel and the other on the Whimsy Stamps channel. Hope you’ll come view them both.
This project was colored on Neenah Desert Storm paper. I love the look and it’s so fun to color on. You’ll see in the videos, that the ink is much darker when it’s wet and first applied. It takes a short bit to dry so that’s something to get used to.
The hair on this character is a short pixie style but I’ve colored it with thick twisted locs instead. Changing the looks like this is called creative color placement, which is a technique that can be done on any stamp and in any spot. It’s even easier to do when stamping or printing the image in a light color. Here, I used a light gray ink.
I have all the Polka Dot Pal sets, of course, which makes it a lot of fun to mix and match all the elements. I usually mask the character but when stamping in such a light color, I don’t bother to mask any of the other stamps. After coloring, it’s difficult to see the lines that should have been omitted and make building the scene that much easier.
The project I have to share today is a mixture of three different stamps plus some doodling on the side. The character is Cheshire Chibi Girl from Stamp Anything. She is part of the Down the Rabbit Hole kit and Ann was kind enough to share the digital version for me to color. The face was replaced with the one from Polka Dot Pals Syeda from Whimsy Stamps. Then the background is a freebie from Sandy Allnock called Stay Home Stay Safe. Lastly, I doodled some flying geese in the background to finish off the scene.
I started this project by coloring the sky. I knew I wanted to go with something non-blue and that would help me set the color pallet for the rest of the project. Unfortunately, it sort of threw me off and so I don’t think the colors coordinate as well as I would liked them to have. But it’s all good and still fun.
After coloring the background and buildings, I jumped into coloring the beanie hat. The original character has a cat but I really wanted to add some extra coloring details and went with a knitted hat instead. Since I printed the image out in a light gray, I just used creative color placement and colored right over the cat hat.
The face and hair was colored while recording so you can watch the video for those details. In the foreground, I added a sidewalk with some grass details. Lastly, I added some flying geese silhouettes in the background to help break up the skyline.
A while back I had stamped an extra unicorn from the Polka Dot Pals Mason set. I’m not sure if it was a good stamp or not enough room around it but I didn’t need it and set it aside. I figured I could use the back to re-stamp something. But a better idea came along and I ended up using it for this bookmark.
The sentiments that come with the Polka Dot Pals sets are longer but sometimes I can find shorter words to use when needed. So for this project, I found “ABLE” within “HUGGABLE” to use on the bookmark.
No sooner did I have this bookmark done than it was claimed by an avid reader in the house. Sigh, I will have to make another one. I needed one too but I’m more glad that she’ll enjoy using it.
I’m excited to share that I have TWO new YouTube videos uploaded and they both feature this project. This is a digital coloring scene from Whimsy Stamps named Polka Dot Pals Syeda Prairie Piglet. It’s a complete scene that is ready to color so there is no merging or cropping.
The first video I created shows the coloring on the clothing. This image was printed out in a light gray color for a no-lines effect. The second video shows how I added the grassy details in the foreground.
I kept the card simple. I trimmed up the scene by using a large border die with stitching then adhered it to my card base. I then added some glitter glue to her headband and boots plus some clear glaze to the frog’s eyes.
Sproatmeyer 