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

New YouTube Channel!

Hello fellow bloggers!

As a creative person I much enjoy capturing emotions and making images through which I may express and share them with others and beautiful arty thing like that... But in the real world just producing artwork is not enough (if you want to make a living out of it, or pretend you are), no no no, you need to switch your brain to a marketing mode and try and promote that art work as much as possible.
It's interesting trying to find a balance between exposing your artwork to as many people as you can (and try and sell it really), while at the same time doing it in a tasteful way which won't kill your art.

I decided to use my old friend YouTube to expose my work to even more people. I found a way to present my still illustrations as a video and keep it interesting. I use music in these art videos and I think it works great!

But don't take my word for it, visit my channel and and have a look for yourself!
My YouTube Channel: PanagisMa

If you subscribe to my YouTube Channel you can follow all my upcoming art videos and animations too.

Make sure to watch my videos in full screen and in HD! (click on the video to get these options)

Take care!
Panagis

Has anyone seen my keys?

Inspired by how cute my two nieces look when they are discovering the world while leaving utter chaos behind them, I decided to capture the moment of study of the random new object in the above illustration :)

details