25. Painting a Jelly Bloom!

Jellyfish Picture Book Process

I managed to cobble together a bit of time to work on my We Are Jellyfish book and I decided to work on one of the main spreads of the book where a big jellyfish bloom takes over! Turned out quite nice, I think. Here’s the process of how it came about!

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Step 1: Blow up the sketch

Step 2: Sketch general shapes in pencil

Step 3: Draw/paint a lil’ test jelly!

Step 4: Looks good? Yay! Color the lightest colors first as the base.

Step 5: Color the mid-tones next.

Step 6: Paint with water!

(This photo was taken in the evening with bad lighting… it looks less splotchy in person!)

Step 7: Draw the darkest tone + details on top.

Step 8: Pop into Photoshop, adjust levels, and invert! Oooohhh…

Step 9: Crop, add typography and scuba girl sketch.

P.S. I know this typography needs work! Trying not to get too sidetracked with getting it right for now.

Step 10: Play with colors, textures, and details digitally!

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Whoo! I was really pleased with how the blue color and transparency of the jellies in the painting turned out. These are Moon Jellies by the way! This is definitely not FINAL final, but it’s going in the right direction. I’d like to spend some more time pushing this further into the weird, trippy mood I tapped into in the last post. But we’re makin’ progress, y’all! (And school starts back in two weeks so I will soon have more time to really dig in!)

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

P.S. Besides becoming a paid subscriber, you can support my work by buying my brand new book, Sketchbook to Style, or forwarding this post to a friend! Already got a copy? I would super-appreciate a review!