Basics of the Illustration Process

I wanted use the devlog feature here to share some of my working process, starting with a basic explanation of the mix media method I have going. If people are interested I can go into the development of the style and how I fumbled my way to it, and maybe where I hope to push it. The short version is that it’s heavily inspired by classic animated features where flat cell drawings are set over detailed watercolor/gouache paintings.

All of my physical art is stored in a big bin with desiccant packets. I dug through to the bottom where the project began and pulled some stuff.

At one point in the story, a newborn whale calf sinks through a bunch of ocean plants. Here are the separate component pieces on paper.

That all gets scanned and mashed together in Photoshop. (I don't do the ink lines on paper anymore. When I was starting Scrimshaw I still wasn't feeling 100% drawing with a Wacom tablet and I was still deciding on how that line work needed to feel.  Making that part digital has expedited the whole process but I'll save that for another time.)

This is the background scanned in.

I flipped it to fit the composition of the foreground better. I love the look and process of traditional media but I let go of this idea that I should avoid digital manipulation to keep it pure or whatever. A lot of my paintings end up like Frankenstein in the finished piece. I'd love if I didn't have to do that but the project requires too much art to spend that much time getting everything perfect on paper.

Here's the rest of the different components:

I sort of prefer to work without planning everything out too specifically, but it's created some waste. In this one you can see a fair amount getting cropped.

I did reuse the background painting later on in the chapter, so that neat plant bulb made it in. But the needs of the scene and the story supersede wanting to show all of each painting and stuff does end up trimmed sometimes.

The biggest wastes of my time have been the failure paintings. Here's an enormous one I had forgotten about. It was abandoned partway through. I think I collaged out some of the leaves to use in another scene, but overall just a waste beyond the instructional power of mistakes.

I found one of my early paint tests and that's kind of neat. Watercolor feels part making up recipes. You have to play around and discover how different pigments behave. It's extremely fun. The pinkish-yellow blob on the right became the colors of the flower bulb seen in the background above.

Hopefully this becomes apparent in later chapters, but I've been investing a ton of work in giving each scene a unique palette. Also I should note, everything for the first few chapters is going to be watercolor. I've only recently incorporated gouache into the method.

Here's the wide profile shot of the mother whale.

And the finished piece:

So that's the basics. I'll probably share more later. If you have any questions I can try and answer them.

Thanks for reading! This project is very new to itch.io and I'm extremely grateful for every download/rating/follow I get.