Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Soft side of Edge

So far, you are already accustomed to frightening pieces of my art in previous posts. Now I have the opportunity to show you the brighter side of my artistic creativity - a children's book illustration! Actually, I'm much more illustrate children's books than anything else. Today when I came home, I was pleasantly surprised! Printed copies of picture books that have recently illustrated, finally arrived!

Picture books / Publisher Školska knjiga
Late last year I had a nice cooperation with the Croatian publishing house Školska knjiga. The result of this collaboration are two picture books that I've digitally painted, mostly. I must admit that see my artwork in one of the best print preview, so far. Printed colors are fresh and alive and quite similar to the original colors of the screen display illustrations!

First double-page from the picture book Flowerosaur
 
“Small dinosaur Cvjetko (Flowerosaur) loved the flowers more than anything in the world. Then he fell in love with the female dinosaur. Everything would be alright if she wasn’t several times bigger than him. Poor little dinosaur trying in various ways to attract her attention…”

Double-page illustration in the work process
 This sweet story I was illustrated using the technique of digital painting. I put a rough sketch in pencil, then painted in Painter

Double-page illustration completed in the technique of digital painting
I used my favorite brush - RealBristle Brush - the result is similar to the technique of oil paintingWith RealBristle brush you can easily control the density and intensity of mixing paint layers. And most importantly - you don’t have to wait for the paint dry!

“This picture book tells the story of a small prehistoric boy and his search for the mammoth. Wanting to prove to his tribe that it’s possible to find and catch such great mammoth, Plamenko bravely stepped into a great adventure…”

Sketches / Pencil and water brush
In this case I combined water brush drawing with digital painting, and used natural textures (rocks, fur, wood ...). But first, I did a rough sketch of the characters, as always I do.

First double-page from the picture book about little cave-boy
Flame-boy and his father, caveman who is a professional painter (further ancestor-illustrator). They talk about the mammoth…

Night when the cave-boy decides to go in search for mammoth.

The boy thought for wild boars that they are mammoths...

First encounter with the mammoth.

That's all folks for now! 

Thursday, March 10, 2011

How to survive an autopsy – Part II – collage

Work on the graphic novel Kindly Corpses, giving me plenty space for artistic experimentation. Actually, working on this project (the first time eight years ago) I started to use the technique of digital collages for some illustrations in the book. I admit that I was quite inspired by the fantastic works of Dave McKean, but I was trying to find my own style of handling ready-made images. So here are two new collage illustrations that should come in the second revised edition of Kindly Corpses.

 
“The image of death is what we needed, not death itself. In the end, it all boils down to the graphic conspiracy…” – Andrej Grammatik

 
So, stay alive and creative!