Brief time lapse and finished art for the piece I created for a Webtoon Christmas episode. You can read my Webcomic, “Airilune’s Light,” for free on Webtoon and Tapas.
If you’re interested in the steps I used to create this tradigital piece using watercolor and digital techniques, there is a longer breakdown/tutorial of this piece on my blog. (Links to Part 1 and Part 2).
Prints of this piece are available here on INPRNT.
At last, here is Part 2 of the detailed breakdown of my watercolor+digital art process. (Here’s a link to Part 1 in case you missed it.) This technique is extremely versatile and could work with a wide range of style choices. This piece was created for a special Christmas Webtoon episode of my webcomic, “Airilune’s Light.”
Thank you to everyone who responded to Part 1. I’m so glad this tutorial has been interesting for so many of you. Feel free to tag me @jngarrettart if you want me to see something you tried based on this tutorial, and if you have questions about the process or there’s something else you’d like to see, I’d love to know. If there are any questions, maybe I can respond to some on my blog if you use my Tumblr ask box.
You can read the comic completely for free on both Webtoon Canvas and Tapas.
Prints and cards of my art are available for sale on INPRNT.
~ J.N. Garrett
P.S. For your convenience, here are the pages where I purchased the brushes mentioned in this post. These are NOT affiliate links.
Devin Elle Kurtz “Foliage and Grass” (Link to “Brush Packs” through Devin’s Linktree.)
Nari is a shape-shifting celestial being who’s design has gone through a number of concepts and sketches during the development of this story, though I always knew I wanted her to essentially be a representation of the night, and I settled pretty early on that she would be based on a faun (baby deer), which helped guide my design choices. Once I had a direction I was happy with, I used Procreate’s “FacePaint” feature to allow me to see her face markings from multiple angles. This helps immensely when I am working on any panels that show her in a more “human” form.
You can now read “Airilune’s Light” for FREE on both Webtoon and Tapas.
I’ve been wanting to do a more detailed breakdown of the watercolor+digital art process I’ve been working on. Part 2 of this process will be posted at a later date. EDIT 2/26/2022: Part 2 can now be read at this link.
If you would like to read my comic, “Airilune’s Light,” you can find it here on Webtoon. It is currently on pause but is back in production (you can find out more about this in one of my recent posts on Tumblr).
~ J.N. Garrett
Creature work for the world of my comic, “Airilune’s Light.” These were fun explorations. The crabs were an absolute blast to do. And the Nari-Gil (bottom image) are more or less the final version of a bioluminescent dragonish-eel-fish creature that has been part of this story world almost from the very beginning, so it feels super satisfying to finally have them finished. If you can’t tell from this or my other posts about my comic, I positively love the ocean. 🌊
~ J.N. Garrett
Back in the saddle…
If 2021 was a horse, I’d have to describe it as an absolutely wild one that’s tried to throw me over and over almost from the very beginning. I’ve wanted so badly to get back to this story, to these characters, to my plans for making it all happen, and yet life has veered off in extreme directions, sometimes for months at a time, and it has literally been necessary for a season to take sizable breaks from some of my projects in order to take care of myself and, quite simply, to not drown in all the craziness.
I say all that as a framework for this: with all that’s gone on this year, it felt especially significant tonight to finally make some real progress again on the next episode of “Airilune’s Light.” I have missed it, and it was wonderful to spend time with Renric, Behr, and Naddie again. This episode is coming along, and I’m looking forward to when I can post it on Webtoon.
Also, much thanks to Stephen McCranie for his videos on comic process on Patreon, which helped me to focus in today and to finally get back into production of this story I so badly want to do. If you haven’t read his comic, “Space Boy,” on Webtoon, I can not recommend it enough.
~ J.N. Garrett
Continuing to share some of my experiments combining watercolor and digital work. For this piece, I used a couple different watercolor swatches (shown here), some basic “go to” digital brushes I use a lot, and a bunch of foliage brushes from several different sets (some by Devin Elle Kurtz, linked here, and another by Madeleine Bellwoar, linked here). Between my watercolor swatches and the brushes, plus an app called Waterlogue, I’m beginning to refer to this collective set of tools as my “background department” for making comics. I’d love an opportunity soon to take the whole thing for a bigger test with a project with multiple panels. Hoping to settle into a rhythm of things again soon where I can get back to my comic stuffs.
Thanks to everyone who bounced around some ideas for naming this technique! I’m still not totally sure what I want to call it, but I’ve loved hearing all the thoughts so far!
~ J.N. Garrett
In a quest for interesting textures in my digital work and for the possibility of speeding up my process of painting detailed-looking backgrounds in less time, I began experimenting this year with mixing more digital and traditional work. I’ve been painting little abstract watercolor “swatches” on a variety of papers, finally settling on Etchr’s perfect sketchbook, Baohong artist’s grade paper, and Arches as my three favorites to use for this process. I now have a fairly extensive and growing library of these little watercolor starters (which you can see some of in the third image here), and I am finding I can use them in all kinds of cool ways in the digital world. I plan on doing some more posts showcasing some of the digital tools I’m combining with these and other art I’m creating, but for now, here’s a painting done with a fairly simple couple of digital brushes paired with a watercolor base. I’m really happy with the effect this has, and I’m excited to explore the ways this could change my approach to comic panels.
That said, I have no idea what to call this approach. It’s kinda like photobashing or collage, but there aren’t any normal “photos” involved, just scans of traditionally painting watercolors in my own sketchbooks. It’s definitely tradigital, I can at least say that. If you’ve got any ideas for what to call this approach, or if you’ve got questions you’d like me to answer about this process in my future posts on the subject, feel free to message or comment with your thoughts.
~ J.N. Garrett
“Ink Blots and Flowers”
“Drips and spots, petals and leaves, intentionality and the unknown all wove together in a dance with the brush, finding a spontaneous harmony as they sprang into being.”
The very act of creating art, for me, can itself be a road that leads to “thin places”—places where the “veil” between the seen and unseen becomes a little thinner, the intangible closer, the eternal glimpsed. One of the biggest reasons I’m pulled over and over toward art is the potential it holds to explore things that exist first in the heart and imagination. Stories, true or fiction, the things we experience through a well woven tale - these hold an enormous power to encourage our souls and to strengthen our ability to walk our paths in the day to day. It has been a joy to explore a variety of ideas while drawing for this theme, and I look forward now to continuing to work on my larger story projects again. There’s much more to come.
Day 31 of my theme, Thin Places, during this year’s Inktober challenge. Created with M. Graham watercolors, Winsor and Newton calligraphy ink, and glass dip pen in Etchr cold press sketchbook. Final accents with champagne metallic watercolor.
To this year’s fellow art challengers: Guys, we did it! 🎉🎉🎉
~ J.N. Garrett
