Animal illustrations

I created these animal illustrations for a personal project of mine. I used my beloved freehand tools such as isograph pen and aquarel pencils.

As always, I tried to balance between precision and playfulness to achieve a result that looks accurate but not rigid.

I drew the needle-sharp, jet black contours first, making sure that every line falls where they should. I emphasised shadows quite a bit to achieve a really bold contour drawing. Then I went in with the aquarel rather freely, not taking the contours too seriously. I wanted the colours to be bright and saturated in order to balance out the dark lines.

Then it was time to do the final steps with PhotoShop: I adjusted some shades here and there, made the colours even more vivid, or erased them completely to let the composition breathe a little bit.