Amanita Red Mushroom in the Rain

 

Final image

I started with the idea of capturing rainy season because it has been raining frequently in October.

Thumbnails

The first thumbnail, as always, was straightforward. Three friends under an umbrella in the rain.

I experimented with a short comic sequence in thumbnail #2. The ending was not great, so I didn't use these.

In the third thumbnail, I thought of Little Star shining a beam of light in a rain might look cool. This idea went wild with Lise dressing up as a detective, catching the legendary thief Nils.

As I was sketching these thumbnails, an image of amanita red mushroom caught my eye. I did not expect that such a cartoon look can exist in nature! I decided to add it to the image.

Thumbnails with mushroom

I like the first thumbnail; so I just tried out different compositions in thumbnails 2a, 2b, and 2c. On hindsight, this was a red flag. I was happy with a composition too soon. I should have drawn more thumbnails to get a stronger composition. The final drawing has a rather weak composition.

Pencil of the final image

I experimented with using a brush pen to ink the mushrooms. I like the process but do not like the result. I will need to practice using brushpen more before using it for inking.

Inked final image

I struggled with color scheme for this one. I ended up simply adding object colors without a color palette as a guide. I attempted to remedy this by controlling the saturation. Red mushrooms got the most saturation and the strongest color, red. The rest of the image was tinted blue. The result is acceptable. I enjoyed painting the wet highlights most.

Little Star in Gentleman Costume

Happy Halloween!

I started this piece mid September with Halloween theme in mind.

Thumbnail of initial ideas

The first idea (see 1) was a witch who hid behind a bush and stole candies from a child—the main character—with some kind of levitating spell while the child was lured by the witch's cat. I quickly realized this was overly complicated.

To simplify, I focused on candies. I wanted to play with scale, so what about cute characters eating giant candies? 2, 2a, and 2b are explorations of this idea. I was happy with these, but I wanted to try out other ideas...

Second round thumbnails

What if the candies are sentient and looking at the Little Star characters? I drew a first with only Nils, the tiny character. b added Little Star and Lise, the girl, turned to see the viewer. I really liked how Little Star and Lise looked here.

Third round of thumbnails

Finally, I explored focusing on costumes instead of candies. What about Little Star dressing up the first time for his first Halloween? 1A and 1B are experiments with character placement. 2 is an outline of important elements. I decided this would be the image to draw.

The pencil of the final image is below. I changed Lise's pose because I like this one better than the one in thumbnail 2. I added Halloween decorations on the corners: spider web, bats, and pumpkin. I also added clothes and thread rolls to suggest that Lise had just finished making the costumes for Little Star and tiny Nils.

Pencil of the final image

Looking at the thumbnail of the pencil, I found the spider web got too much detail. I decided to simplify it into lines when inking.

Inked final image

While painting, I tested positive for Covid. I rest in bed for 4 days and forgot my original idea of the colors. I do not fully comprehend what happened—I thought I kept the idea in mind; but I could not recall it after I recovered. I reverted to my comfortable painting method of picking color based on what I think a material should look. I was not happy with the final color palette, but the lighting contrast is hopefully strong enough to support the final image.

Reflections 2022

I feel it is time for a reflection post since I have not written one in a while.

In the first half of 2018 I was consumed with penciling and inking "Avengers: Infinity War Spread". I then spent around a year to finish coloring the final painting. On hindsight, this was an expensive experiment.

Having finished the long project, I got lost in the many possible directions I could go. I kept drawing, though the artworks were individual works with no common theme. In early 2020, I started the "Dragon Ball x MCU Poster" project. I thought I could get more audience if I painted characters people already knew. I finished the final painting in November 2021.

I did not realized this at the time, but these 2 long projects showed that I needed to pay more attention to backgrounds and composition. I did, however, realize that I was chasing a mirage. Drawing fanarts would not get me to the goal that I formulated at the end of 2017:

I also decided that I would focus on creating a world for children of around primary school age. On that age, I was reading comics like Smurfs, Johan and Pirlouit, and Steven Sterk. Even though I don't remember much of the stories, the adventures and fantastical worlds formed an impression on me. I would like to draw stories like that--evergreen stories that generation after generation of children will enjoy.

Around March this year I started drawing things I find fascinating in my childhood, such as cardboard house and playing with cars over a make-believe town. "Dream Bedroom" was, in my opinion, a concept that nicely fit my goal. It captured the fuzzy idea of what I wanted to draw. In 2017 I thought this idea was children stories. I simplified that into a series of images, which may or may not end up as stories later on. The essence is that an image must capture bitter-sweet feelings from my childhood.

Going forward, my plan is to draw a series of such images--so my long term goal has not changed--only this time I am paying more attention to building audience:

• I will post regularly every Saturday.
• Each post is a square image. No more irregular shaped image.
• I will make composition my starting point. No more character posing in front of an empty background.
• I will post an image in 3 posts: pencil, ink, and color. The 3 posts will tidy up my Instagram profile. No more chaotic mix of pencil, ink and color images.
• All posts are scanned images. No more blurry, unevenly lit images captured using phone camera.
• The 3-post schedule also gives me around 2 weeks to color an image. My mini goal is to improve my painting speed. (Though I hope quality will improve slightly.)

I will reflect again in around a year. Hope to see you then.