Seal Process: Tyger Tyger series in acrylics

Above is Seal's most recent illustration. Normally she works in gouache or watercolor, but for the next couple of illustrations, she is trying out acrylics.

She is inspired and repulsed by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster of 1986. Although not a historical accurate presentation of Chernobyl, her piece is set in a similar imaginative setting. She wanted to feature a resilient resourceful young female protagonist, a survivor, who utilizes her art and imagination to navigate through the decimated world. Below is Seal's painting space. She has her inspiring artistic references close by when she is painting: 1) Cannabis Works by Tatsuyuki Tanaka and 2) Revelations of Chernobyl by Nakasuji Jun.


She recently noticed that she also keeps her coffee dangerously close to her paint water bucket. Which is probably a bad idea. Next to her painting on the right is her original thumbnail. Every 30 minutes she checks the thumbnail and adjusts her values as needed. Below: this is what her palette looks like after 4 hours of painting. She has two side by side so she doesn't have to change the palette as often. For the purpose of this painting, she wanted the colors to be muddy and muted. Ideally, it's a good idea to change the palette more often so you have "cleaner brighter colors."

Below is a zoomed shot of a corner of her illustration. She gives herself at least a .25" bleed all the way around and paints beyond the edge. It makes all the difference in cropping if you give yourself extra room for flexibility. All in all, she had fun painting old rusted pipes and the light coming in through the window.

Thanks for visiting!

Process: Seal's 90 thumbnails

Here is a sneak peek at Seal's current illustration and brief process: Seal was inspired and repulsed by the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. It was the worst nuclear reactor incident that resulted in a massive explosion and severe radioactive pollution that is still affecting the area today. She is working with images of powerplants and her young female protagonist who is an adventurous survivor learning to navigate through a new world. Below is the initial color layout.


90 thumbnails. Seal really likes working on thumbnails. They are small, quick, expressive, and are not committed to any sequential order, specific story, or a uniform style. She worked on these small compositions in the course of two days during her lunch breaks at work and at night. They range from 1min. to 10min. thumbnails. Most of the time, Seal doesn't have a concrete idea to begin with. She just knew that lately, she was inspired by Russian architecture, Victorian metropolis, and steampunk.

In her thumbnails, she quickly indicated 3 value range and three depths of field: foreground, middleground, and background. She is also fascinated by the interplay of light.

Below are some of her favorites. The color rough is based on the fourth thumbnail. Please check back soon for the finished illustration.