"Magician's Palace" - Designing Imaginary Architecture

Hi there! In snowy and cold winter days like these, there’s nothing better than warm tea near the burning fireplace. As I don’t have a burning fireplace (or any other fireplace for that matter), warm tea near the computer has to suffice.

So! Here is the last of the four “case studies” but just one of the whole mass of drawings made for a course in designing imaginaryarchitecture. The concept process behind this design has been described in the course and below you can see the drawing process. This illustration is called “The Magician’s Palace” and the form of the building is strongly influenced by gothic cathedrals.

1.      Well, an expression “concept sketch” may be too generous, but this tangle of lines really helped me to capture the idea.

2.      Just a few fine, accurate lines, which will determine the size of the building on a large piece of paper.

3.      Sketches of details, which I wanted to capture as soon as possible before I forget them (I avoid using reference photos while drawing architectural objects).

Repeating the previous step in ink with “copying” repeatable elements. I’ve been using here the same waterproof Faber-Castell pens, size S. Actually, if I could find size XS, it would be even better.

4.      Further delving into details… and a moment of doubt. It’s going to take a looooong time before…

5.      …finish!

Well, it’s not the real finish yet. Below you can take a look at a short video, where I’ve been painting it with watercolors in sepia tones.

Keep warm!

Medieval Battle

"Expanding Comfort Zone" part...next. One of the most important aspects of a good portfolio is showing an ability to draw various themes (do not confuse with variety of styles!). When browsing through my old portfolio I encountered medieval buildings, steampunk buildings, fantasy buildings and some existing buildings. In short - it was quite monothematic. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. There were also guitars. Still, it was quite far from presenting diversity of themes.

My portfolio needed more people, more animals and more dynamism (nope, torn Ghost Ship's sails  flapping on the wind don't really count as "dynamic"). How about a battle scene? It usually requires participation of a group of people, right? Dynamism is also automatically incorporated. Let's add animals in the form of horses and we will have a complete package.

1. Tadaaaa:

Not oh-so impressive, I know. Luckily it's just my 2-minutes chaotic sketch. Hopefully the final result will be a little bit better.

2. Detailed pencil drawing. The more details are drawn with an easy-to-erase pencil, the less decisions need to be made during the watercolor part:

3. The background. It's almost invisible, but I prefer to keep it very delicate at this stage. Probably after painting these fighting guys, I'll add more contrasts or details to the background. In case of watercolors adding it's always easier than withdrawing.

4. The fighting guys and their brave steeds, stage 1. Tiny little details will be added later.         

5. The fighting guys and their brave steeds, stage 2. Tiny little details were made with brown and white opaque ink. 

As suspected also the background needed further treatment to form a coherent whole with the characters. New layers of warmer colors were added to the sky, the castle and the rest of the environment.

And they lived happily ever after... 

In a Vampiric Mood

A few pen drawings for a little break from painting.  In comparison with watercolors this technique is truly relaxing :) (at least for me). You don't have to prepare an ergonomic workspace which would enable you to use  a painting palette, a jar with water, paper towels,  and several other necessary tools. Also the daylight, which wouldn't change the perception of colors, is not really required. You don't have to wait UNTIL the paint dries. You don'e have to harry up to paint something BEFORE the paint dries. And of course there is no risk that you'll put the brush into your tea or drink the water from the jar.

Dla odpoczynku od farb - kilka ilustracji piórkiem. W porównaniu z akwarelkami ta technika to prawdziwy relaks :) (przynajmniej dla mnie). Nie trzeba przygotowywać ergonomicznego miejsca pracy pozwalającego na sprawne korzystanie z palety z farbami, słoika z wodą, ręczników papierowych i kilku innych niezbędnych przyborów. Nie jest również wymagane  dobre światło dzienne (nie zmieniające odbioru rzeczywistych kolorów). Nie trzeba czekać aż farba wyschnie, lub spieszyć się z namalowaniem jakiegoś fragmentu dopóki farba rozpływa się po kartce. No i nie ma ryzyka, że zamoczy się pędzel w herbacie albo napije wody ze słoika.

This particular commission was even more pleasant because it was partly related to medieval architecture (which is one of my favorite subjects!). Illustrations (7 pieces) were made for a Manuel Cacho's book. I'll write little more about it when the book will be published.

To konkretne zadanie było ponadto o tyle przyjemne, że nawiązywało nieco do architektury średniowiecza (jednego z moich ulubionych tematów!). Ilustracje (sztuk 7) zostały wykonane do książki Manuela Cacho. Napiszę o niej trochę więcej, kiedy wszystko będzie gotowe.

1. A nice, little castle:

1. Sympatyczny, mały zamek:

2. A little less nice gibbet (it's the second gibbet in my freelancer's career :) ):

2. Nieco mniej sympatyczna szubienica (to już druga szubienica w mojej karierze ilustratora :) ):

3. A slightly shabby room of the main character with a quite clever bathtub "invented" by the author of the book:

3. Trochę obskurny pokój głównego bohatera z całkiem sprytną wanną opracowaną przez autora książki:

Details on special request :)

Na specjalne życzenie - detale :)

Children's Book Illustrations

"That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you..."

Stephen King "The Shawshank Redemption"

"Takie jest piękno muzyki: nie mogą Ci jej odebrać."

Stephen King "Skazani na Shawshank"

I spent almost every long, winter evening and night on making illustrations for a children book "Fiddler in the Darkness". Actually, at times described in the book, fiddle in their contemporary form didn't exist. There were however instruments with the same name looking like awkwardly drawn modern fiddle.

Długie wieczory i noce ostatniej zimy spędziłam na ilustrowaniu książki dla dzieci "Skrzypek w Ciemności" (ang. "Fiddler in the Darkness"). Właściwie "skrzypek" nie jest dokładnym tłumaczeniem, ponieważ w średniowieczu jako takie skrzypce jeszcze nie istniały. Stąd tytułowy bohater przedstawiany jest z fidlami - czymś, co wygląda jak niezgrabnie narysowane skrzypce :) 

I took part in this time consuming and labor intensive project mostly because of grim atmosphere and the action set in the Middle Ages (it appeared even more time consuming and labor intensive than I'd expected).

Do podjęcia się tego praco i czasochłonnego zadania  (jak się w praktyce okazało, bardziej praco i czasochłonnego niż przypuszczałam) był mroczny klimat oraz osadzenie historii w realiach średniowiecznej Europy.

I had to confront with lots of "cemetery scenes" (I've drawn over 50 different graves), several "church scenes" (I adore gothic churches), medieval cityscapes and mysterious landscapes with "Dead Forest". It sounds gloomy but it was pretty fun in fact - it was about a children book after all.

Czekało mnie sporo "scen cmentarnych" (narysowałam ponad 50 różnych nagrobków), kilka "scen kościelnych" (uwielbiam kościoły gotyckie), widoczki średniowiecznego miasta  oraz tajemnicze krajobrazy z "Martwym Lasem". Brzmi ponuro, ale w gruncie rzeczy było całkiem zabawnie- w końcu chodziło o książkę dla dzieci. 

My sisters insisted on adding them to these illustrations somehow. So one of them (Eleanor) was presented as an old, destroyed statue of saint Eleanor (of course), the second one was shown as a cemetery angel statue and the third one... oh,  I just wrote her name on one of graves... sorry Emily.

 Moje siostry nalegały, żeby uwiecznić je w jakiś sposób na ilustracjach. Tak więc jedna z nich - Eleonora, jest przedstawiona jako stara, zniszczona figurka św. Eleonory (jakże by inaczej), druga została pokazana figura cmentarnego aniołka, a trzecia... oh, po prostu napisałam jej imię na jednym z nagrobków... przepraszam Emilko. 









 I'm also there! Along with my Mike we act as a couple of mourners on one of illustrations.

Ja także tam jestem! Razem z moim Michałem jesteśmy parą żałobników na jednej z ilustracji.

Action is quite unpredictable so the illustrations won't tell you much about it :)

Akcja jest dość nieprzewidywalna, więc pokazane ilustracje niewiele wam podpowiedzą :)

The book is meant to be released this summer, however much depends on the success (or failure) of kickstarter campaign -> http://kck.st/YRrJV6 . Copies of "Fiddler(...)" with some extras can be preordered there.

Książka ma zostać wydana tego lata, jednak wiele zależy od powodzenia kampanii promocyjnej na kickstarter.com -> http://kck.st/YRrJV6 . Można tam zamówić "przedpremierowy" egzemplarz ze specjalnymi dodatkami (w "amerykańskiej" cenie).