Arnve's Exile - Comic Project

Here are my completed 8 pages of comic story for my latest project. The story isn't over (in my mind) and I may continue drawing pages in my spare time, when inspiration strikes.
I call it "Arnve's Exile" - Arnve being the name I've given the main character.

"With the coming of the tide

And with the endless violet night,

Somebody new is brought ashore

To test the lands of time once more"

"Having the vines blocking way back

She must by some means keep on track,

The dark and deadly chasm overcome

And not to fear and dread succumb."

Info:
Written and Illustrated by Mariya Olshevska
"Original" pages are 8.5 x 11 inches
Bristol/water color paper
Koh-i-Noor color inks
0.05 + 0.1 micron pens and tracing paper for the inks

My basic process was: small thumbnails (mini roughs) ---> tight pencils ---> inked 11x17 pages ---> lettering and panel layout in Illustrator ---> printing on watercolor paper and painting with waterproof colored inks. The painting took between 12-16 hours I think.

Anyway - there are quite a number of things I know could/should be changed and the project looks quite different from what I originally envisioned it to be...but oh well. Next time will be better!


Thanks for reading! :)

"Violet Hour" - Patterned Meticulousness

"Violet Hour" by Mariya Olshevska

So here is the final illustration I did for the Decorative Illustration class, a.k.a my favourite class this semester. For this project we were particularly encouraged to go crazy with details and embellishments...and so I did. This piece didn't turn out to have as much compositional complexity as I originally wanted, but I still like it quite a bit. Originally I wanted Celtic knot-work in the background, which would then have finer patterning inside. So I guess I'll fulfill that musing in my spare time in the summer. I love swirls and patterns!

Anyhow here's the final piece and some of the process below:

thumbnail sketch

rough sketch

line work

Final Piece!

close up

another close up

 Info:
Image size: 15 x 10.3 inches
Bristol type paper
Line-work done with black micron pens ranging from 0.05 to 0.2, and a violet prisma colour pen of 0.05 width
+ a little bit of diluted waterproof ink for the pink blush in the cheeks and lips
Time: unknown, but far longer than 1 hour

P.S. - The title of the piece is inspired by the song "The Violet Hour" by The Civil Wars, a song which I love and imagine this illustrated woman listening to as her hair sways in the wind.

Alphabet + Frivoli-Tea

This week's Decorative Illustration Project!
Our theme was illustrated typography and for the first part of the project we were to invent/illustrate our own alphabet. Mine was on things, mostly kitchen things, that are used to hold or deal with liquids:

Media:
`micron pens
`waterproof colour inks
`assembled digitally in Photoshop

And for the 2nd part of the project we were to illustrated an onomatopoeia word or a play on words of sorts. I chose to illustrate "Frivolity" which I turned into - "Frivoli-TEA". And I absolutely feel a series coming out of this pun. =)

This is the original version

But then I also decided to create my own hand drawn background pattern...

And I actually colorized it in Photoshop to be more of a light blue colour and put it behind my image=)

Materials:
`9 x 11 Bristol Smooth Paper
`Prismacolor pens
`Micron pens
`Koh-i-Noor waterproof colour inks

Oh, and now I'm also on letterplayground.com! A great place for illustrated letters and inspiration=)

Happy Thursday!

Treeology

This is a project from a couple of weeks back for my Children's Book Illustration class. Our assignment was to create 5 illustrations that would be for an encyclopedic or educational type of book.

I approached this project by illustrating 5 different famous fictional trees. I think it would be really neat if there was a book that categorized and described various fictional trees=)

Truffula Trees - Dr. Seuss - The Lorax

Hexxus' Baobab Tree - FernGully (animation)

Silver Apple Tree - C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia

Grandmother Willow - Disney - Pocahontas

White Tree of Gondor - J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Materials:
`Bristol Smooth Paper
`Prismacolor pens
`Micron pens
`Koh-i-Noor waterproof colour inks

Size:
9x12 inches

Happy Saturday!

Lost & Found Comic

So, for my Illustration Comics class I'm working on an 8 page comic. The story of the comic isn't limited to 8 pages, but we have to have 8 finished pages by the end of this semester - penciled, inked, coloured, and with text (if applicable).

The following are 4 of my inked pages so far. The pencil lines for the gutters will be replaced with digital gutters later, and I plan to adjust my panels according to today's critique=)
I won't post the story here, anyone reading will just have to wait in suspense and see how it evolves=)

Materials: 0.05 + 0.1 micron pens and tracing paper
Size: 11 x 17 inches


Happy Monday!