I wanted to work on what I mentioned on my last piece, water grottos underneath the house, filled with secrets. I started out just sketching out the area, and added the characters after that. I don't have as much spesific inspiration for this piece, as it was made as a continuation of last piece, and the work I did beforehand. I decided to add Peregrine to this adventure, as I imagine he is the most knowledgeable about scary creatures and survival. Philbert however, is very clueless. In this image as well, Peregrine has noticed something behind them, which is very threthening, but Philbert and Fox has not yet caught on. They are more interested in this area in the grotto, which has a small well, and the icon on Philberts back.
I had a few back and forths with a friend on what things they may find in this grotto, and we decided together on different elements in this piece. She mentioned the stalactite, while I wanted the small crystals between the rocks and the waterfalls. I am sure I mentioned all of these elements in my last post, though.
All of these ideas for this image came as I was pondering areas surrounding the home of Philberts mom, and perhaps which secrets she could have had.
There's a few design choices I am very pleased with. I love Philberts sword sheath. It looks very medieval, and very hand made. And I love the "torches" they use. Implementing crystals as lightsources is a great way to bring that element of magic into the pieces.
You might notice in this process gif and images that I was very good at taking shots of my work during my sketch, and I tried to record every change I made. However, when I got into the background, I just got so into the work, that I completely forgot to take images of it, and it jumps a lot between the next to last image and the finished product. You might also notice that my initial sketch before I started linework, turned out very dim. I did a lot of experimenting, but I ended up with the final product. It isn't very bright, but not too dim either. It is a bit dimmer than the very first colour sketch, but has a lot of colours that keep your eyes looking around. The experimentation was definitely worth it, and I love how it ended up. The grotto looks magical in itself, and the boys on adventure fits right in there. That's not always the case when you sketch environment before characters, but in this case it worked out very well.
You might also notice that I did the waterfall base colour before I coloured any of the characters. I did this to gt a sence of what colour I wanted in the grotto, as well as easing the background line art for myself. The only difficulty in doing this, is layering. Some objects are obviously above the waterfalls, and some are hidden underneath. Deciding which, and layering everything accordingly, can take some time, but in the end you actually save time, considering how long it would take to do the background that inevitably will be hidden by the waterfall.
If I did this piece again, I would be better at taking a few shots while drawing the background. In some images, that might not be as important, but I think it shouldve been recorded in this one, and I am upset that I got too involved in drawing.
You might notice Peregrine had a backpack in the inital sketch, but it ended up being cut. I did like the design of it, but it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so I figured it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to the viewer either. I really enjoy his little vest though.
I also changed the image on the wall, the dragonfly, to be of crystals, instead of a marking in the stone wall. I think I could only make this change in this specific universe, and it is only here that that actually kind of makes sense? The stone looked good as well, and some might have apprieciated that more, but the crystals just did it for me this time around. Philberts mother was a bit extra, aight?
Inspirations for this piece is, as said, a bit harder. I feel that I am inspired by my own work, to develop Philberts world. I have been in grottos in real life here in Norway as a kid, but I can't really say if that played into this piece. Grottos aren't as explored in these types of adventure series, but they are very interesting. I like the concept of the well, and imagine it to be a tunnel to go even deeper in the grotto.
I have been looking at a lot of environmental sketches lately. I do advise you to check out my Inspirations tab, where I have my pinterest linked. I have absolutely everything I get inspired by on that pinterest, and its more than 300 images. So yeah.
The first image is by Alex Chiru. He has stunning environmental work that help my mind a lot with composition. I don't feel the need to use as many references now after learning by his strokes.
The second image is by Micheal Bills. He teaches me to simplify without loosing the shape of the environment.
Source: https://michaelbills.tumblr.com/post/107201252154/inspired-by-mathias-zam%C4%99cki-to-do-some-value
The third image is by Szymon Biernacki. He is a great concept artist, as well as a great character designer. I love the flow of his work, and he makes great compostions.
These artists are some of those who have inspired me to try to create great environments that do the storytelling for me.