LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN...

What campaign? you may ask. This one:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimdream/vintage-sceneries-a-coloring-book-with-hand-drawn-images

How about a coloring book  with mysterious, sometimes strange, sometimes idyllic sceneries? 

Like a haunted mansion:

Or a fantasy fortress surrounded with dangerous creatures:

Or a charming watermill:

For an absurdly long time I was preparing a coloring book, which pages would be filled with detailed, hand-drawn places stimulating the imagination and inviting to creating. Well, time effectiveness is not my strongest point...

At first I wanted to create a book for practicing watercolor techniques which wouldn't require extensive knowledge about drawing buildings or perspective rules (as everything would be already drawn with lines :D ). I was actually wondering if it's possible to print a coloring book suitable for watercolors, and, after testing many types of paper and contacting plenty of printing houses, I finally found one! The best part is that the paper is perfect not only for watercolors but also for color pens, pencils, pastels etc.

In order to realize this project (called "Vintage Sceneries" by the way) I started a crowdfunding campaign.

And it's doing pretty well! It was marked by Kickstarter with "Project we Love" badge and is already funded in nearly 900%. 

Rewards range from pdf files to physical copies of the book to original artworks drawn upon request (and added later to the coloring book). Of course, the most accurate and in-depth information (with plenty of images, video presentation and all the rewards described accurately) is on the campaign's page.

There's only one week left to support "Vintage Sceneries" and purchase one of the rewards.

Every support is highly appreciated! If  you know someone who might be interested in "Vintage Sceneries", please share this post or the campaign's link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimdream/vintage-sceneries-a-coloring-book-with-hand-drawn-images

My Coloring Book - on Kickstarter!

During the last 3,5 years (how time flies!) in my very limited free time I was preparing a quite fun personal project. And now it's theoretically finished (hip, hip, hooray!).

So, what's this project about? It's a coloring book with diverse hand-drawn vintage sceneries. 

I know, it sounds like a quick and easy project. You could build a house, plant a tree and raise a kid during this time. But hey, I might have put some significant effort into these drawings (have I mentioned that my spare time was very limited?). And if I only knew... making the drawings was just the beginning! 

Another time-consuming task was finding a proper printing house which would be able to print "Vintage Sceneries" according to my highly non-standard requirements. The crucial aspect was thick, high quality paper which would work for watercolors, felt pens and crayons. For some reason, only a few printing houses are able to do that! I hate to be fussy, but a lot of different paper types were tested in order to find the right one. 

Not-so-crucial, but still important issues were perforations enabling removing sheets, aesthetic binding and a cherry on a top - gold and shiny frame on a cover. 

Then I had to do some math in order to determine the campaign rewards. And check it... twice.

And finally, preparing the campaign itself. Only time will tell whether I did it correctly... 

The campaign will last for 30 days. 

Rewards will consist of pdf versions, printed books, printed books with one page colored by my humble person and original ink drawings.  

Below there is a sneak-peak of "Vintage Sceneries":

I don't want to reveal too much at the moment, but there are Victorian houses, gothic graves, mysterious forest huts, medieval fantasy buildings and even a ghost sheep.

Wish me luck! I hope that you'll check out the campaign sometime :) 

If it sounds interesting, check the campaign yourself :)

TOP 3 illustrations (dark and fantastical)

I have some serious doubts whether people still bother reading something as old-school as blog posts. However, I prepared a new post, just a short one. 

Not so long ago I made 24 illustrations for an upcoming fantasy card game (yay!). Nevertheless, currently I can show only 3 of them (not-so-yay). 

After long deliberations  the TOP 3 was finally chosen! Ladies and gentlemen, please let me announce: 

#3 “Infiltrate”  

Simply because most of my illustrations present only buildings. And this one looks quite mysterious (I hope).

#2 “Tsunami”  

 A combination of classic “grimdream” medieval architecture and dramatic/time-consuming waves. 

#1 “Lord of the Void” 

Because dark surrealism is my favorite genre... is there such genre as “dark surrealism”? Anyway, the color combination is nice.

Mysterious Temple

Ha! I bet that you totally forgot about my blog… I apparently did. A year and a half of silence would suggest that anyways.

The illustration below was actually made over one and a half year ago, which could confirm that I haven’t drawn anything since a looong time. But that’s not true, I swear. I’ve been just extremely busy with projects I cannot share with you… yet.

I’ll be brief (just as a busy person like myself should be).

In the beginning, I made a few concept sketches. Not real pieces of art, I know. But don’t lose hope:

Outlines drawn in pencil:

Some details in waterproof ink:

The whole building and the foreground were masked with masking fluid to protect these areas from being painted over with very liquid paint (“wet on wet” technique). Mountains were salted to achieve these textures:

Working on the sky with watercolor paint mixed with gum arabic. Previously masked areas were painted slowly and carefully:

Hmmm… looks almost like the previous step. Maybe I just wasted my time, but I actually added some extra precise shadows and highlights with ink and dense white watercolor paint: