Colored Dirigible

Color study

Dirigible Revamped

I've found out recently that talking about your ideas for a piece out loud to someone else can have great repercussions on your work. For instance, I was explaining my dirigible piece to my very best friend (and boyfriend), Chris, who happens to be a mechanical engineer. He wanted to know all about my little made up world, and because I needed to give him answers to it, he helped me to cultivate a more interesting, well rounded illustration idea.


So the story now is that because this is a little cloud, flying civilization boy, he is much more interested in the ground he has never been able to touch rather than the clouds that constantly surround him. So he sneaks away in a little hot air balloon dingy to go see it for himself. When he arrives, he accidentally happens upon one of the ground natives that he's been warned against his whole life - in fact, it's one of the reasons he's never touched ground and part of the reason his people have never left the sky they had ventured to many many years ago. They didn't flee the natives, they just have lost so much time with their land bound cousins that they have invented all sorts of crazy beliefs about them. The natives are equally as wary of the boats in the sky, and it's been hundreds of years since they've seen the people that man them. The boy and the native are at once shocked, and in awe of the other, and that childlike wonder will probably win out and the two will become friends. Anyway, this is their meeting. And it might look something like this. (Ps, the contrast to help my focus characters stand out will be in the color, and less in the value. I'm referring specifically to around the boy's head)

Are you more interested?

Steampunk Dirigible

Hey there, thought I'd update all-a-ya'lls on what I'm going to work on next. Nothing is seriously finalized yet, just some sketches and some ideas floating around in my head. It's going to be more of a children's piece in a sort of a Russian, steampunk, dirigible/wooden ship kind of way. But at it's core it's going to be something more simple: kids just want to catch clouds in a bottle. I mean, I always wanted to. I would imagine being allowed to stick my head out of a plane window so I could gather up the fluffy stuff in a jar, and just keep it there like cotton candy for the eyes. So... I'm just exploring my own ideas from childhood for a children's piece.

Anyway, this is a page from my sketchbook (ha! like I'm devoted to just one at any given time. There's seriously about 10 lying around), which is typical of my thought processes for any piece. Also, I know for sure I'm using my brother as a youngster as reference. Seriously there has never been, nor ever will be, a cuter kid on the face of the planet. Look well readers, you are looking at the cutest human ever. I hope I do him justice.

Aloja finished!

Here she be. By the way, the colors are pretty darn accurate to the original. All in all, she probably only took me 3 days to complete, because the final day I busted out a bunch of work in a short time.

So, grand total, not counting the couple of days to brainstorm, gather reference, draw and do value and color studies: 3 days.

Aloja - Day Three

Day three of progress from yesterday. One more session and she should be good to go. Sorry for the differences in color between days. One day it's sunny, one day it's cloudy, yada yada. I'm trying, and I plan to scan this puppy for perfection when it's done. This is fairly close in color, but perhaps slightly more yellowy green in the sky.

Aloja - Day Two

As promised, day two of work. Day three may be delayed due to some other project deadlines (and I'll be able to show you these projects later), but the updates on Aloja here will keep coming. In any case, I only estimate maybe two more days to finish up the water and the birds and those last details.