Blending digital and
traditional artwork
Typhaine Le Gallo had always used Photoshop just for embellishing hand-drawn work,
until she worked on a project that made Photoshop the focusuniversity to take illustration classes and study
for a graphic design baccalaureate. This is
where I discovered Photoshop.As a graphic programmer, was
it easy to get to grips with
Photoshop when you first used it?
Yes, I found it to be mathematics applied on
pixels. The layers, masks and post-effects
work are very intuitive for me as I developed
similar features in video games. I chose to
take a professional photography class to learn
how to edit pictures, as to start with I simply
wanted to create illustrations with traditional
materials and enhance them in Photoshop.Who would you say are your
biggest artistic influences?
My biggest artistic influence is Rebecca
Dautremer, a wonderful French children’s
book illustrator. I think she uses Photoshop
almost exactly for the same steps than my
own process: to improve a sketch, to test
colours before applying traditional mediums,
and to enhance the final scanned picture. A
few years ago I discovered another big
influence: the work of Victo Ngai, an editorial
illustrator. For the first time I discovered a
process almost entirely done in Photoshop,
which was truly resonating with me, and it
was the one I decided to use for the Little Red
Boubou project.So was the Little Red Boubou
project completed entirely in the
Photoshop software?
Well, for Little Red Boubou I wanted to push
my use of Photoshop, but still use my usual
watercolour pencil textures. To do so, I drew
lines with black ink on paper, scanned the
drawings and a lot of textures created with
traditional mediums, and assembled the
whole thing in Photoshop. I always start with a
sketch on paper, then I move and distort the
objects and characters a lot in Photoshop until
I’m happy with the composition. I usuallyAbout the artist
Typhaine Le Gallo
typhainelegallo.
com/Typhaine Le Gallo is originally
from France but is currently
living in Montreal, Canada. She
studied mathematics before
studying illustration with well-
known Canadian illustrators
Gerard Dubois, Steve Adams and
Pol Turgeon. She has had work
published by Carte Blanche and
Chinese publishers, along with
having work shown at exhibitions.Name of the project
Little Red BoubouProject focus Blending digital and traditional artwork
F
inding one’s style in Photoshop is
something that every digital artist
does, but learning to develop and
evolve your style is something altogether
more challenging.
With her Little Red Boubou project, a
children’s book based on the fairy tale of Red
Riding Hood, Typhaine Le Gallo took her
original creative process and then adapted it
for the needs of the project. The subsequent
illustrations have been featured in Behance’s
Photoshop and Illustration galleries as a result,
proving that often the very best work comes
from innovation.
We caught up with Typhaine to ask about
her creative process, her influences, and how
she made these beautiful illustrations.Have you always been interested
in art, Typhaine?
I initially studied mathematics and computer
programming; I worked for around 10 years as
a graphic programmer in the video game
industry. But I have always enjoyed drawing
and four years ago I decided to go back to