2024 – Ongoing Series - Lonely Places

I started working on this series in 2024 and I am planning to create at least a set of 50 illustrations in this series. This series is based on places that look and feel like they hold many memories, some nostalgia and a sense of belonging.

How do I plan and start working?

I search for a character pose and some places that I feel like drawing. First, I create some rough sketches of the scenes that comes to my mind when looking at the references I collected. Then I work on the line art of each scene by including a character and a scene (the story). I also decide for a color palette that will go well with the scene by preparing some rough samples of color pass and then I finalize the color that I want to add to this illustration.

I create the line art in a darker color from the palette I decided to use and then start painting the scene.

While coloring, a base color is added to the character first and then to the scene. Once that is done, I work on adding more color layers to the illustration to give both the character and a story a dept and create a visually pleasing composition. I then add lights and shadows to the scene. At the end I add lines, sketchy pencil like lines to the scene that makes a sense of flow to the scene. 

For digital illustrations, I have created some brushes that gives a traditional feel to the illustration.

01/ A character that has used to love swimming once. 

02/ A story of their first date near the vending machine

03/ A feeling of nostalgia in the old house where the character once used to live as a kid

04/ Small ramen shop that the character used to visit often

Tools and Technical details:

• Traditional Medium: Saunders Waterford and Arches Cold Pressed 300gsm, cotton watercolor paper
• Digital Medium: Procreate App
• Colors: Winsor and Newton watercolors, Liquitex Ink
• Lines: Tombow Mechanical pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos Pencils, Derwent Charcoal Pencils, Procreate brushes