Art & Inspiration letters from NIGHTEͶ (Nathan Guilhot)
My personal magazine documenting my creative journey :)
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Hey there Reader!
I hope you're doing fantastic this week :)
Today I have a lot of art to show you! Not only my current illustration, but today I also want to look back at details you probably missed in my older art! It will be fun you'll see!
Let's get started!
Some pictures of my week :D
I had a few cool things happening recently, so here are a few pictures I wanted to show you!
First, I went to a small Ghibli concert this weekend with my fiancée! We booked it months in advance and almost forgot about it until recently; and it was absolutely worth it!
We brought Jiji with us!
It’s the first time I went to a “candlelight” concert, and I really loved the atmosphere. This also meant I couldn’t take any decent pictures with my old phone haha, I wish I could show you!
Here is an artistic rendition of how it looked, completely from memory:
I think it’s pretty easy to tell that Ghibli is a big inspiration for my illustrations. My eyes got wet more than once hearing those themes!
Funny thing, the concert was held in the same street as my illustration “Krupnicza 6” :) We passed in front of the building that inspired it! Here is how it looks these days:
But more importantly for me, I got a new batch of prints!
It was the first time I printed “Quiet Afternoon”, my last illustration with the cat sitting by the window. For all my prints I work with a local printer who, as always, did a fantastic job with it. If you’re one of those who ordered it, I’m excited for you to see it in person 😊
I also took this opportunity to reprint properly the packaging for my cat keychains! I’m so happy about how they look :)
One of them is sold out now! :)
If you haven’t seen yet, last week I brought back all my prints online in my shops; so if you want one (including the cat by the window, and many others!), you can order there directly:
To everyone who ordered already: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart! ❤️
You’ll receive a tracking code when your order is on the way!
That illustration was missing something…
Last week I was very excited to show you my next illustration project: the opening scene from my Inktober project, this time redone as a full-fledged picture in my style :)
Speaking of, I realized I forgot to leave you a link to the Inktober project last time! So here it is, you can go through the entirety of my Blue Roof City Tour here:
Now that you are all caught up, here is how my progress went this week!
First off, I finished the ink as promised:
Everything was going as expected, but as I started the colors I felt something was missing… and putting the colors actually made it clear: there was no green at all!
Practically all of my illustrations have plants in them, so I absolutely needed some here as well :)
Just like IRL, plants give just so much life to a place!
After a second pass to fix this mistake, I was way happier with the result!
Here is how the illustration sits right now, with some additional shadows:
It’s not done yet, but the biggest part has been done!
Next week I hope to show a new version of another scene from my Inktober. Which one are you looking forward to seeing fully realized? :D
I’ll not do all of them but I’m very curious about your opinion!
This is the section where Nighten zooms on an old illustration and nerds about it for 500 words
Okay, so bear with me for a second:
My illustrations take a long time to make, and during this long time I have the opportunity to add little details and stories that I never point out again. A lot of it nobody would notice normally!
So this week I want to try something new: let me talk about those little things!
Today specifically, we’ll talk about the first illustration of my book “Susie & the Blue Roof Witch”!
I apologize in advance for all the hidden cursors in the screenshot. See if you can catch them all!
The flower pot on the roof would realistically slide down, but you can see lines underneath showing that water used for the plant has been dripping down on the tiles.
This terrace has a few interesting things:
The yellow flag on the right should have been an official symbol for the city as a whole; but I never came up with a proper design for it. Vexillology is not my strength haha! But this is why there is a flag and why it looks pretty unimpressive.
There is a table with a red monitor! If I had a rooftop terrace that’s probably where I would bring mine to be honest. The computer itself was inspired by the Apple ][ monitor. Not sure who lives there but they are probably enjoying themselves!
The wooden wind turbine here has become a staple of this part of the city. I first drew it in “Make the World your Garden” in February 2024! It’s sometimes looks inconsistent between illustrations, but the spirit is there. I just think it looks neat.
And finally, you can see hanging above the street a sign for Froggy’s! The recurring and fictional convenient store that I like to include in my illustrations :)
From "Promenade", the most recent reference to the store
Alright, that’s all the details for now! Do you like this format? I could do it for almost all my illustrations, so which one would you like me to cover next?
This could be a fun format to visit on occasion!
That's it for me this week :) I'm happy about the art progress this week, and I hope you enjoyed this nerdy deep dive into those hidden details!
Check out my shop if you want to support my work (and get my art in your home!)