Sneak Peek - Postcards

While live painting as this week's featured artists over at the Blue Macaw via Market SF, we have developed a whole new line of postcard-sized art! Seal came up with the theme of "Steampunk animals," and we really took that concept and ran with it!

These images are parts of two of the new postcards that we'll be featuring at the SF Zine Fest on September 4+5th! Woo, it's coming up soon, so mark your calendars for a whole new line of postcards for sale at the Zine Fest!
We are hard at work trying to work on a bunch of new and exciting projects as we have also confirmed a booth at the Alternative Press Expo this coming October 16+17th, so we want to really step up our game and have some great stuff for you to check out. We appreciate your support and patronage, and we hope to keep producing art and products that you'll enjoy.

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.