Stephanie Memorial Illustration

Medium: Digital

Tools: krita, using custom digital brushes

Duration: Approximately 10 hrs, over 5 sessions

On February 12, 2025 my cousin Stephanie Fryer passed due to a combination of diabetes and illness. Shortly after her passing my wife suggested I create a digital portrait to memorialize her and her life.

As has been the case with most of my illustrative work from the past 2 years I sought to use digital techniques in the most traditional way possible.

From this I advanced my skills as an artist and illustrator. I also learned how much of her mother Ellen she had within her. Studying every detail of her face, as I worked, helped me to see that clearer than ever. As is the case with all of the daughters of God, she was beautiful inside and out. I look forward to getting to know her better in the next life 

Process

Found a photo of her with one of her nieces on a Facebook page. As is the case with all Mobile phone photos, they are wide angle. This causes distortion in the final image. I used Affinity photo live filter 'Lens Distortion' to correct this. worked pretty good.

Once I had an image I could work with, I exported a jpg image and placed it on a blank 11x14, 300 dpi canvas in the app Krita. Once in place I did a quick trace.

After this I rendered out the painting, while looking at the reference photo on a different screen. Toward the end I hopped on a video call with my brother for a critique. He offered a fresh perspective and his vast experience that helped me to implement needful improvements. By this time, it was the Saturday before the funeral, and I had to get this to print. I made a few more adjustments, then sent this off to be printed. My Aunt was extremely grateful for the digital rendering. I was happy to add something positive to her mourning.

100% screen grabs below plus an animated progression GIF. Enjoy.