The move to Substack has made this whole newsletter thing so much more enjoyable. So here we are exceeding our new years resolutions to post once a monthly with the second January newsletter. I hope this isn’t too much Alice in your inbox.
I just wanted to talk about what I’ve got going on in the next month or so, and I’ve got a digital painting walkthrough for you!
What’s going on in the next few months?
At the end of January I will be starting a new children’s book project! I’m super excited to get stuck into this, I’ve missed working on children’s illustration! I hopefully will also have another one lined up after that (which I am very excited to work on).
Because of this I will be reducing my days a week that I tattoo and be working from my home studio the majority of the time. I’m hoping this will make me more likely to paint and illustrate for fun too! I’m excited to spend more time at my desk.
A Digital Painting Process!
I also wanted to share the process for this digital painting I made this week. This piece was inspired by an idea for a children’s book I have but I will say no more on that for now! Here’s the finished piece, I’ll briefly talk you through the journey!
This particular illustration was done in Photoshop but the process would have been fairly similar in Procreate. I began as usual on Pinterest looking at some reference images that I have collected.
If you want to see a full procreate process video there is one on my YouTube channel.
I started with a very loose sketch, I like to use a fairly chunky brush with the opacity at 50% to build up shapes gradually. I don’t focus on details at the point just the general shapes and layout. This also shows you how I have my workspace set out on Photoshop. I like to have all my most used tool preset and favourite brushes accessible with one click. I usually just have Layers and Colour open on the right but for some reason the properties tables are open here 😂.
After the sketch I start blocking out colours with the lasso tool. This is where I started looking at the references in the piece. Sometimes in a photo study I will be drawing from reference from the beginning but this one was imagined and just inspired by the reference photos. I don’t have a screenshot of this stage but just imagine this but just flat colours. To get the point shown below I just build up textures with various brushes. I love the Nik Henderson stamps brushes. I also carve in shadows with multiply layers as I go to give depth.
I like to develop each element as I go otherwise I tend to get disheartened when it still looks like it’s getting nowhere after 2 hours. The reflection was made by just flipping the necessary layers, lowering the opacity and adding a small amount of motion blur.
I added some little details to the water with pencil brush. Then, enter whale! I mapped out the shap with the lasso tool and added detail with the same process of adding texture, and pencil details. Then added shadow and highlights, again with multiply and overlay layers. (Sometimes I will use soft light or hard light layer types for highlight and lighting.)
Then added the little girl character in the exact same way! Just without the lasso tool, she was just drawn in with a textured pencil brush.
The finishing touches are added were:
A soft peachy overlay over the whole ting to get that early morning light!
A noise layer (a mid grey tone layer with noise added and then set to overlay, opacity right down).
Selective Colour layer. This is how I edit colours. I gave the shadows a slightly green undertone and a more yellow-y hue to the mids.
Before colour edits:
After Colour edits:
Here’s some crops and a black and white version!
I’m really happy with how this one turned out, thank you for coming along for the journey!
Also if anyone is interested in a mid month reading update! So far in January I have read:
Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothuss. I enjoyed the first two thirds of this book found it dragged towards the end. I know loads of people love this book it just wasn’t for me and that’s okay 😂 .
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh. This was exquisite, I loved it so much. The writing was beautiful. I also sobbed while my partner was playing Skyrim next to me. I would 100% recommend this book to anyone. Just be wary it was very intense at times. It’s young adult, but definitely difficult to read at times. I was the most real yet hopeful book I have ever read. A new favourite for sure!
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. A change of pace and content after a book about the Syrian revolution. It was cosy and lovely, I don’t even like coffee but this book made me crave it. Not the most groundbreaking writing or characters but a fun and cosy time.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Another favourite. It’s only short and I read it in one day and already want to re-read it. A beautiful, intimate and poetic love story. Another one I’d recommend to everyone.
Any good books you’ve read recently? (Please chat with me in the comments!!)
Also add me on Goodreads here!
Thank you for reading, hope everyones had a lovely January and 2023 so far! See you at the end of the month for the proper newsletter!
Your newsletter is such a joy to read, it's always wonderful to see it popping in my inbox 💖✨ hope you're having a wonderful day :')
Hi again! Sorry for the spamming on every thread 😇 but I just noticed a cute coincidence. I have been working for the past week or so on new illustrations for my portfolio (I am following my first ever Domestika course, pretty interesting) and I created this story with a little girl who lives on a farm but is obsessed with the sea. So everywhere she goes she wears this yellow raincoat and a little pouch bag in the shape of a... Whale! Just noticed it looks a lot like your character!
I wanted to add a picture to show you but apparently you can't?! 🤔