Stefan Große Halbuer

Jimbō-chō Bookshop, Part 2: Working out multiple light sources

Added 2024-12-24 15:32:51 +0000 UTC

As I recently finished the Jimbō-chō Bookshop artwork, here's a second process insights post focusing on colors and lighting tricks.

Hey dear Patrons,

as I recently finished the Jimbō-chō Bookshop artwork, here's a second process insights post. After explaining my approach to composition and perspective in the first part, let's focus on the color palette and thoughts on lighting today! This artwork definitely had some tricky parts to figure out, so I think this is a perfect process to dissect for you.

In addition, I've also uploaded the timelapse video in full length above.

The right palette for the right mood

From the start, I had a pretty "Plastic Pen on-brand" palette in mind for this, meaning: purple and orange hues all the way! I sometimes feel like people must call me dumb or boring for using these colors so much, but they just work for me! 😄

And they also worked for the mood setting I wanted for the artwork: late afternoon, last daylight, almost blue hour. Maybe a bit of twilight vibes that create a calm and positive atmosphere. I set up a base color palette like this:

The reason this palette goes well for the described mood is that while it's heavy on the warm red and orange colors, it sets a cold blue & purple contrast. However, I needed some time to figure out how and where to dial in the blue hues.

While I first wanted to color more of the house parts blue and purple, I intuitively shifted to a more monochrome orange for these areas. Instead, I set a purple statement with the plants on the right.

You can see how I've played around with coloring the objects and surfaces from minute 12:17 in the screencap video. After a bit of trial & error, here's the final flat colored version:

Sunlight vs. artificial light

I wanted to add very warm light, coming from a deep standing sun, as the main character in the lights play (1). A second light source comes from the lit windows, which create a tricky situation especially on those windows that are hit by the sunlight (2):

I decided to not try to emulate realism too much here, and to skip any complex reflections on the glass. Instead, I colored what you can see in the rooms with basic flat colors. Then I added a bright yellow flat "behind" the windows, and set it to Hard Light blending mode:

This way the sunlight and artificial light both remain strong and "meet in the middle" while battling for attention.

A deep sun and long shadows

One characteristic aspect of an evening sun creating this special atmosphere are the long shadows. In a city, this means most of the lower levels would have the shadows of other buildings cast over them.

I cheated the shadows a bit to my advantage: By using long shadows on the farer buildings to the left, while keeping a sunlit area in the front, I wanted to direct the attention to the main scenery. Putting only a partly shadow on the center building and the paved square create additional depth - I had the most fun with the leaf shadows in the foreground! 🍁😊

Here's the result, after adding some final color tweaking and details: