Walking into Hill Valley – Mythical Type

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.