Finally in the 20s of Philbert pieces.
I wanted to create a piece that could feature a lot of the Philbert crew, as well as building the world further. I started out with drawing this huge tree, and added to the sketch. The tree became a house, in a small village of trees, where this big creature lives. I still havent given her a name, but I want her to be this kind of mystical creature who guides Philbert. Perhaps an old friend of his mother who doesn't want the same fate for Philbert as his mother got. I hadn't drawn her for a while, and looked up my own sketches for reference, and thought I could change it if I needed to, and this was a great cance to soundproof her design, but in the end I stuck with it. I like her design a lot, and think it does it's job.
This image really shows the difference between Philbert and his friends in size. Philbert is around 14, but he is very small and round. He looks like he's 10. Why is he so small?
The other kids are from 15-18. I do imagine age difference there isn't as big of a deal as it is here. You make friends with the kids around you, as there arent 30 people in every class to choose from, like for us.
I liked my last piece with the scarecrow and wanted to give the same feeling in this image. I wanted the characters to blend well into the background, and make them a part of the world instead of gleaming protagonists.
The strength of this piece is how it's composed. Everything plays in with eachothers, and you can definitely get an idea of how the world works. The small details guides your eyes through the image, telling you where to look next. The spiral staircase on the tree makes for a great contrast, and tells your eyes to look in the background at the sides as well. The tree looks very majestic in a whole, and is truly the main character of this piece. I wanted it to look ancient, and filled it up with vines and stone. The doors also give this great image of how they live in these trees.
I can really imagine how this image moves and breathes, and hope the viewer does too. I do want to create an animation out of this piece, and was considering just doing that immediately, but since I am in the retrieval process, I can't make the time. It would only count towards one piece, even though an animation would take a week or two to finish. So in the end, it would have been selfdestructive to experiment on that scale at this time. I will rethink this idea when the retrieval process is over.
I made this small gif from the images I had saved during my process. It is a bit easier for the eyes to look at the changes there than on individual pieces. Kind of funny when she bursts through the door, isn't it?
I want to stress a little bit that this is not how I typically sketch. I wanted to create a piece where I focus my sketching in a way that tells the story of how I think. This helps you see how I think when I sketch, but in reality I sketch a bit quicker and looser than this. I usually don't feel the need to sketch in detail, but give myself loose guidelines. I also dont feel the need to sketch light and shadow, but I did in this piece to show you how I think while I draw. While I don't physically draw those lines, I have them in my head. However here I tried to sketch my thoughts out just so you can see my head murring. I do think the piece would have turned out the same if I didn't do this process. This process also took a lot of time, so I really hope it does it's job of telling how my brain works as I draw. I used perhaps double the time I usually would.
I started this piece around 15pm UK time and finished around 11am UK time the next morning. I didn't do a lot the next morning, but I noticed my poor blob on the right side hadn't been coloured in, and did a few quick fixes. I am not sure what these blobs will be named, but I see them as sleeping beings that are very very old. They can also fly. Just take my word for it.
As you can see, I also changed Peregrine's pose completely one time. You can see the original pose better in the still below. I just thought it was too similar to the post he had on another piece, and wanted to change it because of that. I sketched him a few times, and wanted him to be looking away towards the sun, since he probably thinks about flying away as soon as possible, but for now he is still enjoying his time with Philbert and co.
I also spent some time to do some colour deciding. I went back and looked at a lot of pieces to decide the colours I wanted for each character in Philbert. It is quite interesting to look at them as only colours. Can you see who's who?
1. Philbert. Skin, blush, hair, eyes, hat.
2. Pepper. Skin, blush, hair, eyes, hat, feather on hat.
3. Peregrine. Skin, dark rash, hair, rash, eyes, hat, brim on hat.
4. Fox. Main fur, white fur, dark fur.
5. Andrew. Skin, blush, hair, eyes.
Not that interesting to you perhaps, but interesting to me! Kind of funny how similar Philbert and Pepper are, I never noticed. Perhaps because they look so different elsewhere. Maybe they are cousins? That would be cute.
So, over to inspirations.
The first piece is by Minna Sundberg, a finish artist and writer. It is from her online comic, Stand Still, Stay Silent. Her work is truly inspiring, and she creates astonishing pieces "with ease". Her work always has clean and gorgeous lines, with so many small details that keeps your eyes running. Her work inspires my style, how I shade, and how I keep adding those details in hope of achieving what she does.
The second piece is by ma-ko (@blurring_my_day) on twitter.
The use of light in this piece inspired me to experiment with light and shadow. As you see in my process, I have a few trials with contrasting. This piece guided me to where I wanted my piece to be. It is not as contrasting, but it has the elements that I wanted. The piece is great in general, and is of course meant to be magical as there is a witch in it. Without anything out fo the ordinary happening, he truly manages to catch the magic of nature.
The third piece is by Bill Mudron.
He creates posters inspired my Hayao Miyazaki's movies. I have seen all these posters, and I love how he takes it one step further. The way he made these trees so majestic inspired me to try the same. I took that piece of inspiration and just based my whole image on one big tree, and worked from there.