For this piece, I wanted to capture the cool, dark depths of the woods. This is also a dynamic moment where the character startles a monster that’s rising out of the water.

In the past, I’ve often found it challenging to balance detail when I’m inking a piece like this. I don’t want my illustrations to be too busy; they should have a clear, graphical look. To help me achieve this, I’ve recently started colour blocking. This takes the guesswork out of designing the right shapes and balancing details, and helps me to see whether I’m getting the right end result at an early stage.

Inking is my favourite part of the process. I think of it as drawing neatly, rather than making every line perfect. I use a textured ink brush at about 50% flow, and will often break up my lines to distress them. Once I’ve done my first ink pass, I always go back in and add some graphical black shapes.

To help design graphical shapes, I’ll start colour blocking while I’m inking. This has sped up my workflow by taking out the guesswork of imagining how things will look. Blocking out the dirt and grass shapes made this much easier to ink, and seeing a glimpse of the final piece made me extra excited to finish it.

I used opacity layers to add light to the scene and multiply layers for the shadows. To create gradients that emphasise my focal point, I used a textured watercolour brush. Using the same brush, I added some dirt and texture in order to make the illustration look less digital. Finally, to push the drama in the scene, I added an artificial spotlight to the characters.