You see, last week I wasn’t sure what would be my next big illustration project. It’s not that I don’t have ideas; it’s that it’s hard to choose which one!
But I looked back to the pictures I took this summer while I was in Japan, and I really felt very inspired to reproduce one of them!
This illustration was already based on one of my pictures from Hakone!
I’m clearly not done with the pictures from this trip! Amongst my favorites, I picked this one that I took in Kyoto Imperial Palace:
When starting a new illustration, my usual process goes as follows: Go straight to digital, sketch using the biggest round brush I can get away with, and refine from there. After 3 to 4 iterations, I’ve captured enough details that I feel like I can finally do the ink and cement the details I want.
But this time, I wanted to do something different: use my sketchbook for the whole sketch!
I sat down one evening and redid as many details as I could on paper. I actually already sketched this specific scene loosely around Christmas, but going over the same thing multiple times really helps get a sense of the details and proportion.
That’s one interesting thing about working from pictures: You can always find more details, no matter how much you zoom in :) And it’s very relaxing to work on! Almost meditative in a sense.
Diving into the details is really the reason why I bought a camera in the first place, so I’m glad it pays off!
(Although I have to admit I got kinda lost in the weeds with the amount of details haha)
I then took this sketch into digital almost straight into inking, and here’s what it looks like so far!
I wish I had finished the ink already, but considering my usual pace, it’s not that bad :)
What took the longest, as you can guess, is getting all of those leaf textures right: I only use a single round brush, so it forces me to get creative when drawing different kinds of plants and surfaces.
What a mess
You can even zoom in and barely tell what’s going on until you have the full picture. I can’t wait to see how the timelapse will look like at the end!
Next week I hope to have a colored version to show you!
Btw this is the exact location I took the original picture from Street View :)
Evergreen is Now Available as a Coloring Page
Yes, that’s it! I just wanted to quickly notify you that if you liked my last illustration, it is now available as a coloring page to print at home :)
All subscribers of the newsletter get access to a drive full of coloring versions of my art to print at home. You just need to click on the link from your email client! I also added it to the gallery on the same occasion. I’m finally up to date again!
