The Explanation of the “Flower store”

Howdy! It’s me.

I’m going to explain how the “Flower store” has been made. (Thank you so much to have liked so many times.)

The process for this is quite complicated, so I’m not sure if I completely slice and dice it, but don’t worry. I’ll definitely explain the critical points.

My agenda for this drawing is;

1. Five Things I Wanted to Do

2. Image Composition

3. Rough Sketching

4. Rough Painting

5. Final Painting

6. Finishing Touches

Upon working on a rough painting, I felt so apprehensive about if it was going to be good. Thus, having finished it, I was over the moon.

As some of you may know, this is a cover of the book sold at Kansai KEMOKET, so I had to submit it before the deadline. In reference to the deadline, I feel nervous and can’t perform as usual every time when the deadline is close. Had I had a plethora of time, I would have spent more time in each phase, but not in this case.

Anyway, let’s get started.

1. Five Things I Wanted to Do

-To draw a flower store

-To show characters attractively

-To make it seem nice by itself when it’s divided into a front cover and a back cover

-To make the situation in the morning

-To use a backlit expression on hair

-To photograph as if the characters are walking around a station.

The theme is a flower, needless to say, this illustration must be related to a flower. Moreover, this is a cover of the book seen at first sight at KEMOKET. For that reason, I put all into drawing this.

In terms of backlit expression, I just wanted to try it.

2. Image Composition

I selected the upper left one circled by red because the angle of view is not so wider than the others.

I thought it might be a better choice because the composition looks easy to accomplish the 5 things I listed above.

Assuming that I had chosen the other compositions, it would have been hard to achieve those, examples of which are;

-To make it seem nice by itself when it’s divided into a front cover and a back cover.

-To photograph as if the characters are walking around a station.

If the angle of view is wider, the image would be dynamic, which is good. Although there are advantages and disadvantages. For example, many things can exist in an image, but when it’s divided into two images it is hard to make it nice by itself due to the geometric distortion.

Having considered what I wanted to do, I thought a narrow-angle lens would be better because one can prevent the image from the geometric distortion, so the image would be distinct and it still works when it’s divided.

Therefore, I chose the image shot by a narrow-angle lens.

3. Rough Sketching

Based on the rough composition, now I draw rough sketching.

At the rough composition phase, the horizon line was relatively high, so the lower body exaggerated unintentionally. Then, I lowered the horizon line, consequently, the background and the sky can be seen. On top of that, I put a flower store and a sunroof into the foreground in order to maximize the feeling of depth. As a result, the camera is as if placed inside of the flower store and photograph the view.

It’s a little bit messy because I placed importance on speed. Now I clean it up.

At this phase, I used the perspective guide which is one of the modules of Procreate.

What I kept in mind was both of the characters and the background seem nice.

The significant objects were nicely placed, so now I add and adjust things.

I extended the campus and adjusted the height of the characters and objects to make them stand on the same ground, based on the main character’s height. I don’t usually do so, but currently, I have wanted to improve my perspective skills. That’s the reason why I did it so carefully.

4. Rough Painting

In order to organize the light, I put a gray layer and put shadows and highlights roughly.

Generally, it’s a whole lot safer to control the image if you put them until you can imagine the final image with colors, but I didn’t have much time to do so. Therefore, After doing so, I started painting colors.

I made a blue layer and overlaid it on the image, and put more highlights from the sky.

Additionally, I put more light expressions that I didn’t manage to do during the previous phase.

Had I skipped the blue layer process, the illustration would be more white-ish(muted color) because the gray would have gotten in the way of my success. Thus, I put the color entirely at this moment.

Nextly, I paint objective colors.

When the objective colors of the main characters and flowers are roughly painted, this phase is done for now. This illustration is blue-ish, so the characters are painted with a complementary color, which is orange-ish red. By the way I thought it wasn’t going to be a good illustration as I mentioned earlier. Had I had more time, I would have drawn rough sketching more detailed and put colors painstakingly. However, I was being such a spineless to do so. Then, I just kept going with the feeling of apprehensiveness.

5. Final Painting

First things first, I started a final painting from the main character whose hair is red.

I was still uneasy about if it finishes or not.

My brain was occupied by such negative thoughts…

I painted step by step, and eventually, I could see the final vision.

Just because the theme is a flower, I added a couple of flowers drawn on other illustrations in the book. Besides, I added also a Kiosk, because I wanted the ambiance of a station.

Products at the kiosk are just random patterns.

Finally, I felt more and more confident about this. It’s such a great weight off my mind.

Now, I divide it into some layers in order to paint more detailed.

It’ll never be good unless you fix the main objects, so I made masks of the characters as if I did it to Shibako-san(柴子さん).

Flowers are complicatedly overlapped to each other, so I divided them into 3 blocks and 2 layers.

Other than that, I finished painting the clerk drawn super roughly and made a mask of him.

The benefit of dividing is divided parts can be drawn easily so that I can paint them more efficiently and save my time. Currently, I have painted entirely from the beginning (not finishing parts by parts) and when I find something necessary to paint independently, I divide it, paint it and combine it again. I have to always deal with Procreate. For example, the maximum number of layers, which is 17.

After combing the layers of flowers, I divided the other untouched objects into some layers.

With that, I started painting the background. I prepared some materials for the windows of buildings.

I fitted them to the correct perspective by using the Free transform module.

Upon working on it, I drew a bunch of perspective guidelines to confirm if they’re correct. If not, I adjust by comparing them to the size of the characters.

It’s getting close to the goal.

I made a mask of the Kiosk and finished it. Other than that I added more details to the building behind the red-hair girl and the one behind the Kiosk. What is more, the flowers at below right corner are brighter than it should be, so I applied a multiply on them to make them darker.

The area where buildings and the sky meet is still untouched. In order to divide and paint the sky, I combined the layers of the left shop and the background.

I erased the clouds drawn earlier. Afterward, I made a beautiful gradation in the sky.

The foreground objects are nearly done, then I put people, street trees in the middle distance and cloud in the sky. The aforementioned people are placed based on the perspective guideline.

The background should be good so far. Now then, let’s put more effort into the main characters.

I increased the visual comprehensibility by drawing lines, adjusted colors a little bit and added furry expressions.

Except for the flower store and the main characters, I combined the background layers and applied them to a defocus blur (Bokeh). This simulates the depth of field. Then, the main objects I want to show become more distinct to the audience.

The next phase is a brushup.

6. Finishing touches

I won’t touch the background anymore. I just added touches where I want to show to the audience.

From now, I add and add details until I get exhausted.

Where to quit is probably depends on the creator's preference.

Things I added information are Irises and other flowers around those, the bunch of flowers held by the clerk and characters whose information is less.

The biggest change from the previous phase is the red-haired girl’s feet. The angle of feet seems a little bit odd. To fix it, I slightly shifted the entire skirt and feet.

Lastly, I applied some effects, examples of which are noise, light, and dust reflecting lights.

Then It’s done.

Thank you for reading my article.

I’m an English learner, so if you have any difficulties to understand, please let me know.

If you leave comments below or on Twitter, I’m really happy. I read all of the comments for sure, but allow me not to reply to all the comments. Those comments help me to come up with an idea of what I’m supposed to do next.

Thank you for your understanding.

This article is exactly the same thing in the two plans on Fanbox.

As I have been doing so, the sole difference is the date you can download.

If you want to get more detailed data, you could upgrade your plan cost 1000 yen.

The 3 data I contribute are;

-The final data in .psd

-The final data in .png

-The high-quality time-lapse whose duration is 1 min.