Happy Hanukkah!

--> Now on Sale here <-- 

The Festival of Lights, the eight days of Hanukkah!
The menorah has eight candles that symbolise the eight days the Maccabees’ menorah miraculously remained lit for, despite the fact that the oil fueling it was only enough to last for one day, during the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy. The ninth candle in the middle is the shamash, the servant, used to light the other eight candles.

You can buy my Hanukkah Cards by clicking here!

Christmas Cards!

--> Now on Sale here <--

 
 

Winter brings us festivities and celebrations once more, it’s the time of the year when we exchange wishes and give presents to our beloved ones.

For this Christmas I have designed a card in red to capture the warmth the holidays bring to our hearts despite the cold weather.

You can buy my Christmas Cards by clicking here!

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat, smell my feet.
Give me something good to eat.
If you don't, I won't be sad.
I'll just make you wish you had!

Space Fantasy Project

Here are some more sketches of creatures for my space fantasy world.

I want to create fantastical creatures that are gorgeous, mysterious or humorous with weird shapes, patterns and colours.

Although they are creatures from another planet, I decided that I wanted them to look somewhat familiar so the younger children reading the book could relate to them more. Maybe it could be become a bit of a game, trying to figure out what animal each of this creatures looks like, I use to do that as a young boy!

At this point I'm more interested in the actual anatomy of each creature and character and will decide on their colours later on, when I will have decided what the environments' palettes will be.

I'll be using my usual illustrating technique, with my own brand new custom made brushes on photoshop :)

 

Space Fantasy Project

Some time ago I had an idea for a story of a little boy astronaut who lands on a strange and colorful planet full of mysterious looking people, animals and plants.
Guided by his new friend Celino, who he meets right after he lands, the boy starts exploring this planet. Initially he finds everything around him scary and awful and dismisses it,  but Celino helps him understand how this different world works and eventually the young explorer appreciates its unique beauty, however different it may be to the earth he knows.

This is the rough idea of the story. Now I have started working on some concept art for the characters and landscapes of this planet. I feel very creative working on this new picture book project, and I intent to keep it simple as it will be created for a younger audience, but still have a lot of content to make it exciting to read and see.

I'll post updates as I start refining the story and the artwork.

Little Robin - Corel Painter 12

I decided to try Corel Painter 12, after having given it a shot in the past with its older versions (which I found clunky, buggy, slooow and crashing way too often). Although not totally free from these ailments, I found Painter 12 to be rather charming. It has many tools to try out, emulating different painting methods.

This little robin was made using its digital acrylics tool. It can takes a bit getting use to and can be frustrating at times, especially if you're used to working on Photoshop like me (what is up with the layer system?!), but its tools realistic behaviour with many adjustible parameters along with its natual colour mixing effect make it a very impressive and powerful illustrating piece of software.

If you're an illustrator it's definitely worth giving it a crack!

Before You Say Goodnight - Spread 01

Back to children's illustrations this week and I've finally completed the first spread for the book I'm working on with author Richie Frieman, Before You Say Goodnight.
It was a challenging illustration to create as there are many levels of depth, many details and objects to put together without letting their textures mix with one another, choosing what colour everything is so it all come together beautifully and what the light source and brightness level of the room should be, given it's a very young children's book, so I didn't want to introduce heavy black shadows, but at the same time I wanted to make it feel like it's night time and have the lights and shadows be a bit dramatic.


I tried different versions out, and after showing Richie some samples too and getting feedback, this is the final result.


The text will fall on top of the white headboard of the bed.


I like working on a HUGE scale, it guarantees good quality for the illustrations and you can also print your work in large dimensions keeping the quality of the image if you so wish. The back draw is the computer's slow performance once the image has started becoming very complicated and heavy.

revelation/structure

revelation

structure

Revelation and structure are two pieces of a sequence of events.

The book of revelation foretells the end of time and the annihilation of the human kind. Before the apocalypse consumes us all though there are moments in our life when the penny drops and ugly truths come into the light, sending us to a very dark place.

After a period of grief the desire to carry on living and to feel happy and healthy again kicks in and you start reconstructing yourself. A strong sturdy structure to sustain your new life.

Composure

Composure is hard to maintain in some cases.
When emotions of loss and grief conflict with the socially acceptable you have no choice but to stiffen up and bear, while pieces of you come undone.

Hello!

I'm back to blogging after a little summer holiday brake.

Because I don't post as often as I would like to on my blog, I've decided to expand its character and content.

I will make it a platform to showcase my broader artistic output and not only my artwork for children's books.

This will make my blog page  more interesting, richer in content and the updates a lot more frequent!

I hope you enjoy my new and improved blog!

Cheers!

Panagis 

Porovitsa Beach, Greece - Summer 2011