Illustration Station
Turning dreams into dazzling drawings and designs.
Summary
Illustration Station is a single component project that documents the illustration process of my brand mascot and discusses my history with illustration. The project marks the first time in my design career that I have illustrated a mascot for myself since most illustration projects that I had undertaken up until this point were done as hobby pieces or a part of a project for an organization or institution. This illustrative endeavor was also the first time lapse that I have ever posted. The sole component of the project can be viewed here since it is a self contained Nehrpsyznet exclusive with Arcmaevotix having no sibling items to it. This is because any of the related creations that were previously hosted on Arcmaevotix (which was formerly the old AmzroSevca channel) had their presentation reassessed before being added directly to this production.
Process
The project started with me researching what I wanted my mascot to be based upon. Brand kits of my labels in the past have often included puffins and arctic foxes, so I looked into my options for birds and canines. Ultimately I ended up settling on canines and created a mascot that was a fusion of several animals including a Siberian Husky, Fennec Fox, and Arctic Fox. Animals that my previous brand kits had identified with heavily were temporarily shelved until later in the process. With the canine direction decided, I got to work assembling a library of references and even doing some photography work of my own. Then I went and spent several weeks learning how to draw animals and other creatures in a Chibi Manga / Kawaii art style. This is a style that I used to draw a lot of as a kid, but as I got older, more commitments and interests pulled me away from illustration. After going through a refresher and messing up proportions repeatedly, I finally got the shape structure that I wanted and began to develop details such as the nose, ears, paws, etc. As my mascot went through their paper to digital conversion stage, much of the visual direction was inspired by franchises such as Kimba, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Pokemon. Once my mascot had reached their final form, I began building an expression library so that they could be used as a voice reactive avatar for video commentary and broadcasting projects.
Reflection
Illustration Station was a culmination of all of the knowledge that I have gained through past illustrative explorations and made me feel more confident and at home with my artistic abilities when it comes to the canvas. While traditional mediums such as graphite drawing, painting, chalk, and more were familiar territory for me since my childhood, digital painting was a sphere that I didn’t grow entirely comfortable with until I was part way through my design education. That is largely because my proficiency in using desktop tools for design was a bit sporadic when I was young as opposed to now. And using digital illustration apps on phones and tablets never gave me the precision, control, or tools that I wanted to work efficiently and naturally. After studying digital illustration in university and being forced make the next step in growing my skillset, I became much more happy with using a desktop environment to do all of my design work whether it be photo editing, programming, vector illustration, digital painting, video editing, audio engineering, etc.