FMP - Sketchbook Pages 21-22 (Sketches and Final Piece)

These pages show my final sketches and final piece.

On the left we have three sketches for Cottagecore and two for Dark Academia.

While producing my final piece, I moved layers from one Procreate canvas to another quite frequently so that I could look at different aspects of the piece. Sadly, I did not realise just how difficult it would then be to produce a cohesive time-lapse for the process of the piece. I have included chunks of time-lapse where I can, and I will describe my process for areas that are too unclear to show.

My final piece is a mixture of digital illustration and photographs that I took.

For the sketch of the dragon that made it into my final piece, I was referencing greyhounds on google images for the anatomy.

The girl in the foreground and the dragon are entirely illustration, but all of the background was created using photographs. I cut sections out of the photographs in Procreate, like the tree in the foreground for example, shaped the edges, set the layer to Alpha Lock so that the shape would remain the same, and blended the layer by hand. I used a Jingsketch custom smudge brush to blend the layer, colour picked some of the new blocks of colour and used the same smudge brush but as a paintbrush to make it look more 'painterly'. In doing this I was able to boost the highlights and shadows appropriately for the scene and customise the photographs to my liking.

As a final touch to boost the lighting effects further, I added a dark purple layer on top of each of the 6 numbered layer groups I had divided the piece into (1 being the front foreground, 6 being the background).

I did the same thing for each purple layer:

I set the layer opacity to 50%, set it to Multiply, clipped the layer to the layer below, and used a soft eraser brush to paint in the highlights gradually. Doing this added a lot more much needed contrast to the piece. During the time-lapse that shows the purple layers there are long pauses where it looks like nothing is happening- that is because I was changing the layer settings as I have just described.

Below: My sketchbook pages for my sketches and final piece.

Below: Digital versions of my final sketches.

Below: Digital version of my final piece.

Below: Time-lapse for dragon sketch.

Below: Time-lapse for sketching and colour.

Below: Time-lapse for final composition edit.

Overall, I am somewhat happy with what I created, but this whole project felt like a waking nightmare. I feel like I would probably be happier with my work if I had enjoyed the process of the project a little more.

The reason for the project feeling like a nightmare is simple. Every time I tried to draw, I was completely overwhelmed by this sense of guilt and grief, because I could no longer show my Dad what I was up to. My love for drawing comes from him, so I need to make sure that I take the time over the summer to try and fall in love with drawing again without this guilt hanging over me.