Dream Bedroom Miniature

 

I have always wanted to illustrate a childhood fascination, things that wowed me in my formative years. One such thing is miniatures. Mini-sized version of daily things are fascinating to me. This is the fuzzy concept I had in mind when I started sketching thumbnails.

Very quickly I realized how fuzzy the idea was. What miniature do I draw? At what angle do I present it?

I took inspiration from the manga "Yamada to Kase-san". There is a scene in which Kase went into Yamada's room the first time. So the miniature is a room... a dream bedroom. The camera angle is slightly high, high enough to display furniture and decorative items in the dream bedroom.

Plus, I instinctively knew I wanted to include a girl reacting to the dream bedroom.

Thumbnail sketch

In this thumbnail, I thought of an actual bedroom. I needed to add enough things in it to make it believable as a bedroom. So, bedroom, pillows, study table, chair, windows, school bag... I felt something was still missing.

I noticed I used straight lines in this thumbnail. The idea is a dream bedroom, so I used soft, round shapes in the actual sketch. The bed, study table and chair became rounded. Next, the bedroom is probably a girl's bedroom. So I added items that are more feminine in my mind: flowers on bed, plant pot, giant bunny plushie, sandals, mirror on table, and candle.

At this point the momentum of ideas was enough to finalize the sketch. Next comes painting colors.

I experimented with an almost monochromatic color scheme with a touch of complementary accent colors. Once I was happy with the colors, I started thinking about lighting.

I wanted the lighting to have a dramatic effect; on the other hand, I thought strong shadows on the bedroom would work against the fluffy cute feeling I was going for. So the bedroom got a diffuse lighting from the top, while the girl was backlit.

Finally, while working on the final touches I received some helpful feedback from friends in my community, I am grateful for that :)