Very early look of my character for my PB manuscript :) Awww, so cute.
This is what absent minded painting comes out looking like for me. To be clear, I've written the text, story boarded and edited each page, developed character designs, done a bunch of research and planning for the look of the thing, but the touch or the handwriting of the mark making is what is left to work out. I’d like to balance the look of the raw digital and some of the rough edges with something that looks more like paint 🤔
I want it to be both paint and rendered legible form simultaneously. I can chase a realistic texture or lighting scenario, but for this I'd like to ride that moment where it looks exciting like paint balanced together into form. I like this very raw digital, almost reckless sort of approach to just bringing something into view. It helps to get me past overthinking, or trying to figure it all out in my head instead of on the page, and being too precious with the brush marks. But even as someone who likes the digital look, I need to use this as a rough draft to create a more polished image that I'd be happy to explore printed at a larger size.
I'm liking this direction though. I want an image that is full of things to look at and even discover. I'm want this to be a book that can be opened and enjoyed and explored more than once. They're illustrations, but they're also paintings.