Hey peeps, I hope y’all are having a great weekend ๐ We promised to post blogs so here I am… posting one now ๐
I thought today I’d share with you the process of one of our old projects: Whoa. We had so much fun with this one because it just kept going and going and going…
Most of our coops are like that; we started simple and it became epic on its own, which is why we always had fun ๐ We averaged about 9hrs per sketch. I think the record quickest was ‘Before The World Ends‘ which we completed in approx. 6 hours.
Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we? I hope you enjoy it!
1. We talked about the concept over chat. Basically we just wanted a turtle looking utterly impressed as he discovers an abandoned turtle mansion in the middle of nowhere (ha! don’t ask me about the size. Maybe a giant turtle used to live there or something, lol). I transposed what we talked about into a quick line drawing above. | 2. Having seen Isaia’s ‘Home‘ sketch, we quickly agreed that he would be in charge of the grand mansion. So I started drawing what I could: the cute turtle, the tree and rough background colours.ย When I sent it to Isaia he said he already saw the mansion ๐ | 3. And he really must have, for it didn’t take long before he came back with the mansion and … wow! I was so impressed. It was more than what I imagined. So cute! He even added a balcony and all!ย | 4. We agreed the scene needed atmosphere, so I added some fishies (see those Nemo look-a-likes swimming in the background, lol). I also fixed the turtle: changed his shell to match the mansion andย made him more 3d by adding highlights and shadows to match Isaia’s light. In the process, I gave him a lollipop. The turtle, not Isaia, lol.ย Isaia did some work here also, adding details on the tree, the stairs and the house.ย |
5. When it came to fun details, Isaia couldn’t stop. Haha. He added little plant-beds near the house, with cute little garden lights, also other ornaments like bucket and brooms.ย And then it came to us that we should scatter garden gnomes about the scene for people to find.ย This was the fun part. Isaia drew his four without telling me where he put them and then I drew my three without telling him. We then found each others’ gnomes. And no cheating! We couldn’t look at the layers. Haha. In the process, we also added more stuff .. like the orange fish trying to steal the turtle’s lollipop and the particles floating in the light shafts. | 6. I tried putting some texture over the sketch with Theo Ybema’s watercolour. Although it looked wonderful, we thought it was already busy enough that the texture somewhat distracted it. But thanks anyway, Theo ๐ | 7. Nothing much different in this step other than the lighting and colours. We used overlay and gamma to achieve greater shine and blend the colours better. | 8. I wanted Isaia to post on SC by this stage, but he didn’t want to (apparently he was becoming quite attached to this turtle… I don’t know why. Haha). So we continued on, adding more fish, fixing more of the lighting and putting other crazy details like the ice statue and the barrel. It was a lot of fun ๐ |
Anyway, so here it is the final sketch. I don’t know if you learned anything from the process but I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Oh, while you’re at it, you can try to find all the gnomes for us ๐
Have a great week, peeps!