Last Sunday, a hot and humid July day, as I was sipping an icy mint and vanilla infused water ( yum! fave), I thought about an idea for a new illustration.
From time to time I do change the type of tools that I use, or the way that I approach a new illustration, but the process that I’ll describe here it’s the one that I’ve been using the most recently. I thought it could be interesting to some of you to read about it.
Among the projects that I have been working on, there is a series of illustrations that I called ‘Ettie’.
Ettie is a young girl that constantly, and unknowingly, puts herself in dangerous situations. Ultimately, nothing seems to ever happen to her, and the reason why she never panics is because she is definitely not aware of her surroundings. The idea came to me after seeing many ‘Etties’ walking around Brooklyn, looking at their phones and paying no attention whatsoever to what was happening around them.
My Ettie doesn’t have a phone but she definitely lives in her own world.
The first of these illustrations is ‘Ettie and the Spider’, (check it out in my portfolio) where Ettie is not aware of a giant spider in her proximity and closing on to her.
#1
The second idea for this series came in the form of the title, ‘Ettie and the Troll’. The moment I thought about the title I started envisioning ideas of what the illustration could look like. This is a crucial time in the creative process, where I am compelled to scribble down whatever idea has formed in my mind, idea which is shifting and changing and that could vanish as quickly as it came. What I do, like many of you reading this, is to scribble whatever I see, on a piece of paper that is readily available.
Picture #1 shows what the scribble for this illustration looks like. It’s almost embarrassing to look at but it does give the idea of how unrefined and extemporaneous, almost illegible, these quick drawings can be. It's really just about photographing your thoughts before they disappear forever so there is no time for details. It’s just a bunch of messy lines that can capture ideas of shapes and forms. The first scribble pictured both Ettie and the troll in profile, then I thought that it would have been more interesting to use a different angle so I drew the same scene in three-quarter. It’s almost hard to recognize the forms but the idea is that Ettie is in a exhilarating mood, totally oblivious to the fact that she is sitting on the head of a huge forest troll. This is all I need to move on to the next step.
#2
I grabbed my 11 x 14 inches Strathmore Sketch sketchbook, which I use for preliminary sketching, and quickly drew a more detailed sketch of the same idea I scribbled before (picture # 2).
Sometimes in this phase I work with blue pencils. They are lighter and aren’t as overpowering and messy as regular graphite pencils can be. I like Staedtler’s Non-Photo-Blue or Prismacolor Col-Erase Blue pencils. I mostly use blue pencils when I am still drawing subjects in basic forms, while I am attempting to capture gestures and the idea of the composition.
#3
Once I laid out the general idea of the composition and shapes, I took a sheet of vellum paper ( I like to use Borden & Rileys Sun-Glo Thumbnail Soft Tone Sketch Paper, it’s a lot of vellum for a small price), I placed it on top of the blue pencil sketch and I drew a more refined sketch, added details and other necessary elements.
This is very much like drawing in layers with Photoshop or Procreate, for instance, only with paper (picture # 3).
I sketched Ettie in my sketchbook (picture #4) , referencing the pose from the blue-pencil sketch. This was the right time to browse through my art reference books, such as the Illustrator’s Reference Manual Nude and the Fairburn books, for references of expressions and anatomy (picture # 5).
When both sketches were done I took a picture of them with my iPad, opened both in Procreate, added a layer on top and prepared the file for the lineart.
Next time, I’ll continue documenting my process for creating this illustration. I hope you’ll find this information useful. I would love to know all about your own creative process so leave a comment below 👇🏻, in the comment section, and let me know how you create your art!
