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As you know, progress on this one has been a bit slow. The subject was very different from what I usually draw: I had never really drawn fish, underwater plants, let alone a full underwater scene before. It was challenging! But I’m very happy it paid off :) My win of this week is that I worked a bit differently this time: Instead of trying to do everything during the weekend, I spread the workload more evenly throughout the week, including during lunch breaks. It made the whole process feel much easier, and I think I was able to do more because of it. Well, I still did a lot during the weekend haha, but by then I already had a lot done, so I had a nice head start! So last week I was able to finish the ink, and from there I could finally move on to colors. The first step was blocking everything out: putting the different elements on separate layers, preparing the shapes, and making sure I had a clean base before moving into the actual colors. Then came the real color work, and finally the shading. And that last part took a lot of time. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to sell the underwater feeling correctly. I went through a lot of iterations, and I think the most important part ended up being the water texture, which is not something I usually rely on so much. So usually, I suggest texture with ink or scratches, but here I couldn’t really do that in the same way. The water needed something more subtle, more atmospheric than what I usually do. It brought me to a very real question: How does water looks like in my style? That might sound a bit weird if you don’t draw, "what do you mean you don’t know your own style?" But yeah, for me the question was more about making it coherent with the rest of my work, even though I never drew this before. I use a lot of flat colors, hard brushes, and clear shapes. These are not exactly the first things you think about when you imagine water texture. So I had to look at a lot of references, try things, copy some effects, simplify them, and slowly find something that worked with my usual constraints. In the end, I’m really happy with how the texture turned out. It changed the way the whole space is perceived, and it finally gave the illustration the atmosphere it was missing. I consider it completely done now, but as usual I might still tweak a few values before publishing it officially :) A very personal illustrationThe other project I’ve been teasing for a while is the cat illustration and the flowers! I was very vague about it until now, and the reason is that they were made for something very personal: it’s the illustration we are using for our wedding invitation :) Now that we started giving them to friends, I can finally show it to you properly! As I mentioned in previous newsletters, I worked on this one in tandem with my fiancée. We worked on the sketch together, then I handled the ink and part of the colors. She wanted me to do the ink because my linework is probably the most distinctive part of my illustrations; I wonder if you agree with her 😄 Then she handled the more complex colors, the shading, and most importantly the full layout of the invitation. I wasn't sure if I was going to censor the date and address or not -- I guess if you’re really dedicated you can come over and have a drink haha, but I scribbled the location to be sure But more seriously, I’m so happy with how the illustrations turned out. We really wanted to make something that people could keep beyond the wedding itself, something they could hang on their wall if they wanted to. I love how cute the cats are, and of course, since it’s for my own wedding, it feels very special to finally hand over the invitation :) Seven more videos this weekNext, something that is becoming routine here: I posted seven more YouTube videos this week! As you may know, I’m trying to post a new video every day in order to improve my speaking, and hopefully share some useful thoughts along the way. A lot of those videos are ideas I wanted to write as blog posts for a long time, so I’m very happy to finally bring them to life in this format.
If you’ve been enjoying the videos, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment, or even just reply to this email. It helps me know what resonates with people :) Cool art of the week!Before wrapping up, I wanted to share a two artists I liked this week! The first one is Michael Whelan -- he’s been painting books and album covers for more than 40 years, and his work is super inspiring to me! Recently this illustration in particular really impressed me. I’m only showing a detail here, so I invite you to watch the full one on his profile. The second one is an illustration by Anarky Art, which someone sent to me because it kinda matches my vibes a lot :) Their work is really good and I think you might enjoy it too, so here is the link to their profile if you want to check it out: https://www.instagram.com/anarkyart/
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Get a weekly peek into my creative world!
My personal magazine documenting my creative journey :)