Drawing

The hot air balloon in Elemental

/ Drawing, Movies, Process /
A detailed illustration of a hot air balloon floating over a city.

I watched Elemental without knowing what to expect, because Disney’s marketing missed the mark (again). But I liked the movie overall. One of my favorite parts was seeing how each character used their element, like Ember inflating a hot air balloon.

I wanted to draw the scene with the hot air balloon floating over the city. I started with a pencil sketch. It’s rough. I wanted to figure out the foreground vs. the background and where the balloon was in the sky, in relation to the skyline.

A rough pencil sketch of a hot air balloon floating over a city.

Here’s a photo of when I was painting the larger areas. I simplified colors and composition (all those buildings!) because it’s so much detail.

A painted illustration of a hot air balloon floating over the city. The buildings are painted in blocks of color, without many details at this point in the process.

Here’s the finished drawing.

Wayne Manor

/ Drawing, Process, Superheroes /

Here’s an illustration of Bruce Wayne’s mansion (Wayne Manor).

A colored illustration of Bruce Wayne's mansion (Wayne Manor). The building is painted back with blue highlights. Windows are illuminated in white on the left and right sides of the building. To the right of the building, there's a bat symbol in the sky. The sky is painted a cool gray color with blue clouds, and black lines. In front of the building, in the foreground, there are small trees painted in black with blue highlights.

I really like how the blue highlights contrast against the black on the building and the trees.

Here’s the pencil sketch I started with.

A pencil sketch of Bruce Wayne's mansion. To the right of the building, there's a bat symbol in the sky.

You can see my other Posca pen illustrations under the “Posca” tag.

Metropolis at night

/ Drawing, Process, Superheroes / ,

Here’s an illustration of the Metropolis skyline at night.

Illustration of Metropolis skyline at night

I started with a pencil sketch to outline each building.

Pencil sketch of Metropolis skyline

I started painting by covering the large areas first: slate gray for the sky, black for some buildings, and gray for some buildings.

Paint progress on the Metropolis illustration. This image shows the block colors: slate gray for the sky; black and light gray for the buildings.

Then I added in all the details.

Detail of Metropolis illustration

You can see my other Posca pen illustrations under the “Posca” tag.

Walking into Hill Valley

/ Drawing, Process /

Here’s an illustration inspired by a scene in Back to the Future: Marty walking into Hill Valley.

A painted illustration of Marty McFly walking into Hill Valley. The road is painted light green. The grassy fields on either side of the road are dark green and light green.A sign posted in the grass says "Hill Valley, 2 miles."

I made this as part of a course on illustrating with Posca pens. The assignment was to use two shades of the same color as the main colors in the piece. Since a lot of this image is grassy fields, I chose two shades of green. I kept Marty’s outfit realistic (orange vest and blue jeans) to signify that he’s out of place…or, more accurately, out of time.

Here are some thumbnail sketches I did prior to painting the scene. I wanted to test out colors–what looked good for the grass and Marty’s outfit.

Thumbnail sketches to test colors for the grass and Marty's outfit.

And here’s the simple pencil sketch I started with.

Simple pencil sketch of a man walking on a road.

You can see my other Posca pen illustrations under the “Posca” tag.

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