Watercolour Concept Art

Since my rediscovery of using watercolour, now with the ability to paint without permanently crinkling the paper, I have taken the technique to some new concept art for Acorns. Using some new A3 watercolour paper, I sketched out some new and old character poses on one sheet and character expressions on a second sheet and did some pastel watercolour washes over it.

I'll be using the expressions sheet as reference for some of my character performance later on. They were largely inspired by character sketches by Hayao Miyazaki in art books for Kiki's Delivery Service and Ponyo and Oliver Jeffers gorgeous watercolour imagery in his children's books.

The Art Of Kiki's Delivery Service

Oliver Jeffer's Lost and Found

I love the storybook quality to using watercolour with pencil sketches in this way and would love to do this for an entire illustrated book of my film... if I only had the time! I've really enjoyed using watercolour and may introduce it further in my film for backgrounds or at the very least using the bright, pastel-like colour palette for my digital clean-up and colouring.

More to come in the new year! :)