many artists can relate to cringing at their old art, and as tempting as it is to burn your middle school notebooks, you should hold on to them! i often flip through my ancient sketchbooks for inspiration and to remind myself of how far i’ve come as an artist.
when flipping through my 2017 sketchbook i found a series of anime girls based based on ‘the manga fashion bible’ by christopher hart. since i still have that book in my possession, i decided to give one of the girls a revamp using the source material i had when i was 15.
based on the notes in my sketchbook she was a genius/prodigy, well-behaved but ‘spacey’ and often in her own world. i could see that she was alice in wonderland inspired so i wanted to keep that aspect. in the redesign i wanted to keep her outfit pretty similar to the original but change some parts of her personality. i liked the idea of her being a young genius but thought it would be more interesting if she was a trouble maker instead; rather than being ‘spacey’, she thinks etiquette is stupid so she often comes off as rude.
to start the actual redraw i took scans of the pages i referenced, as well as the original drawing, and uploaded them to my computer. this will make it easier to directly reference later.
i wanted to add a bit more gesture to the pose, this is not to say that the original was ‘wrong’ and the new version is ‘right’ – just a change that felt more in character for the redesign. the revised pose is more expressive and playful than the original one.
digital artist tip: use an off-white or light gray background to prevent eye strain
after getting a rough sketch down, i added some base colors before moving on to the line art. i like this step because it gives a better vision of what the final product will look like before fully committing.
After finishing the line art it’s just a matter of coloring in the lines. i made some minor adjustments to the color palette, like giving her red eyes and more golden blonde hair instead of platinum. this moves away from the typical alice colors – not much of a difference but it fits better with the warmer color dress.
even though i liked the color adjustments, i still wanted a version close to the original for comparison’s sake. then i just added a simple background that was a callback to the ‘Manga fashion bible‘ and a tarot frame to tie everything together. i chose ‘the fool’ because this card signifies naivety but also adventure and willingness to try new things.
Here is a final comparison of the 2024 version and the 2017 version side by side. below is the final illustration with the new colors. overall i am happy with the result and would love to do this again with more of my old drawings. in another 7 years i’d like to revisit this piece for another redraw. comment below or send a message on my contact page if you do something similar.
