Little Panda - Pequeño Panda
http://www.carolinadeluca.com/illustration
It is true what it is said that, sometimes, while drawing, the pencil becomes alive and with its own will, and ideas evolve and take ways we didn't think in the first moment. I guess it is just that one can be so focused in something that thoughts come up almost unconsciously, aided by the images we have already drawn.
Little Panda (Pequeño Panda) was born in this way, during the illustration process of the wishes of a godmother to her baby godson. My pencil became alive and my drawing evolved to the figure of my little son and his doudou, his inseparable fluffy toy, a little panda bear. All at once I discovered that the Little Panda was the image of my boy, and that the little rag mouse was that of his panda bear, his friend, his solace, and maybe his secret confident...
Now Little Panda has life on his own, as a character, starring what it will be his first book.
Illustration for Little Panda book cover
I have previously described a bit what is involved during the creative process. In fact, you might be surprised to hear that it starts as soon as the project has green light. From that moment and until I have a more or less clear picture in my head, I think about it last thing before getting asleep, and first thing in the morning. And intermittently during the day. When the idea starts to form I just get very anxious to draw it, but I am already more relaxed inside.
Before starting thinking, or before starting drawing, the first thing is to decide the format. Yes, the format is very important. Because we tend to think only the content matters, but not, the way we place it, the "white" around it, is also a very important part of the composition. Once this is settled, I start to sketch.
When I started sketching, I already knew I would use the relationship between a kid and his toy to illustrate the different concepts I had been given. I also knew I didn't want the kid to be a human kid, but an animal. But I hadn't still decided exactly which animal. I also knew the doudou would be an animal too, but didn't know what yet. I had three or four choices for them, and I started sketching. After two or three sketches, Little Panda popped up as the main character.
When I was satisfied with it, I got to his toy. What interested me is that the toy would have features that would immediately give the sense of movement of a rag doll. That's why I made it with long legs and long arms. Long legs and long arms can just hang or have some expression. Then I made strips so that I could color it a bit more, and provide some contrast with the panda's black and white colors. And well, I chose a mouse because it seemed to me a panda and a mouse were a good match :)
I did the sketches for all the concepts, carefully working on both the body language and the expressions of the character. Because a good sketch is crucial, as it represents 90% of the total work.
Some of Little Panda sketches
Only when the sketches were given green light, I started the final artwork.
First of all I prepared the paper, marking the format I was working with. In this case, all illustrations were to nicely fit in a 15x15 cm square. Then, I just drew everything again very very carefully, trying to always keep my paper clean, making sure to always keep the same proportions between the panda and the mouse, between the panda head and his body, between the mouse head and his body and legs, and all this sort of things. I carefully worked on the body and face expressions, first using a soft pencil for all drawings in parallel, and later on, when happy, using a waterproof marker to finalize the lines.
One of the Little Panda final illustrations, before putting color in
Time for the final final step: coloring.
I scanned everything, just for safety, and printed a copy of the image above, for coloring tests. I chose this one because the bodies of both the panda and the mouse are clear and complete. These illustrations were to be done with watercolors, and we cannot remove them once put in, so testing colors is a good thing to do. For the black parts of the panda I used black and indigo, letting the watercolors mix in in the paper. The mouse was to be orange with touches of blue and violet. The first test came out nicely, so I went back to the originals to color them.
And voilà, this is the final result!
Little Panda and his mouse are very good friends, and they hope will share many adventures in the future.
