Each volume of the Last of the Irin trilogy was drawn by a different artist. Rob McMillan‘s words were brought to life by Wouter Gort (Volume 1), Laura R. Peinado (Volume 2) and Arseniy Popov (Volume 3). Get to know them, their art style and drawing techniques better here.
VOLUME ONE – Wouter Gort
Independent concept designer from Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wouter Gort’s precision drawing skills are frankly intimidating. He’s specialized in creating wicked fantasy and science fiction-like concept art and illustrations with a strong graphic feel.
To understand the complexity of the visual process he used, here below are the creation stages of just one page.
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What starts as a simple sketch during a brainstorming session is re-rendered with light and shadow.
There is then a second round of reformatting the layout and angles before the 3D artists get to work, preparing the Models.
Objects need to be rendered that are historically accurate and then the models and objects are placed into the Scene.
It is only at this point that the line drawing is done, shadowing added, and the final stage of coloring.
The whole process has much more in common with the film industry than illustrations in the past. |
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Wouter’s ArtStation | Instagram
VOLUME TWO – Laura R. Peinado
Concept artist and illustrator from Madrid, Spain, Laura gave her interpretation of the characters inherited from Volume I in an amazing and colorful way.
Learn more about her through her interview responses below.
1. Can you introduce yourself?
I’m a 27 years old artist from Spain who loves to express everything that doesn’t exist since I was a kid. Fascinated from every detail I saw in the reality too, I could not wait to grab a paper and draw it. I think my first time drawing was long time ago… since I have conscience. I remember to go to a tiny art school near my grandparents’ house when I was 10-11 years old. There I learned to paint with traditional techniques such as oil paint and charcoal and I put all my efforts to paint better than any other person there hahaha I was so competitive! Later, when I was 16 I did Arts at high school and at 18 I entered in a art school called ESDIP, for three years I were there learning all the techniques, traditional and digital ones to dominate illustration skills. But even I have all those learnings I’ve never stop to taught myself with tutorials.
2. What are your sources of inspiration?
Artwork from other artist, I watch different art webpages everyday, and all I see keeps me motivated a lot. My friends are also in this world and they always have some new artist or artwork to show me so it’s easy to keep the interest. But I also need a natural source of inspiration, not only imagined images, there are huge amount of incredible places and cool ideas the people does which you can see travelling or searching in Internet. Mixing this with the imagination can bring you awesome ideas to paint!
3. Can you describe your style? And its evolution?
I’m comfortable in a stylized art style. I like the real forms and colors the life currently gives you but this already exist, I found pleasure in develop more the main features an object or environment can have itself and exaggerate them to have something that can transmit better an idea or feeling. I started close to a kind of manga style, as I read a lot of them, but later with other artists influences I begin to transform my style into a cartoony one and then it was getting more realistic nuances, exaggerating only parts and proportions depending in the look I wanted to show.
4. What were the different stages in your drawing process of Last of the Irin?
After reading the script I have a 3D sheet with the basic spaces and characters I have to draw in the vignette. Decreasing the opacity of this layer I do the draft lines and then the final ones which had to pass the approval of Wildfry. Once I had it I have to bring the color palette, I had references of lightning and real places I use as a color guide to bring a color palette to the spread pages. Starting to work on the background to go after general elements, then characters, foreground objects and details. At last, I use to bring special effects with filters to any vignette that need it, like motion blur or highlights.
5. How long did it take you to finish the project?
Hmmm, I think drawing all pages took me almost two years.
6. What was your biggest challenge on the project? What did you learn from working on this project?
One of the biggest challenges was to fit all characters in Volume one with my style, I remember taking a lot of time trying to make them the most similar as possible, specially Sarosh! Wildfry can tell how hard it was to have him with the same appearance that in Volume 1. It was hard sometimes to keep the same level for every page, but each one had something special to draw so this was more like an entertaining challenge. I learned from doing this project to be more efficient, and working hard. In art terms I have learned a lot, like drawing faster and better, and define much more my art style. I’ve also learned how was to work with others’ ideas and demands and also that you shouldn’t dedicate more time working than living your life.
7. What have you been up to since the end of your creative journey with Last of the Irin?
Currently, I’m working in the video games industry here in my country, in Pendulo. It’s a tiny company but they have done a lot of games known in Spain, and one about Blacksad, a graphic novel done by Juan Guarnido. I’m a concept artist there, which means I have to bring to 2D all the ideas they have for their games and develop characters and environments too. Also making some illustrations or the cover for the game case.
8. Do you have a particular anecdote about your work on LOTI? Anything to add?
Not really, just curious facts like the story from Last of the Irin have been following me through life. Those matters have always interested me, and before working in LOTI I was in a tiny group of videogame lovers making a game a bit like this story. There just were stories and facts that want to be told!
Just want to add it was great to work on this project and with these special people. I encourage everyone to explore far away what they think they want to do in their lives!
Laura’s ArtStation | Instagram
VOLUME THREE – Arseniy Popov
Russian multimedia artist Arseniy has proposed a design for volume 3 that is radically different from those seen previously. We let you discover more about him, his inspirations, and his creative process on Last of the Irin.
1. Can you introduce yourself?
Hi, my name is Arseniy and I am a multimedia artist. I have been drawing since childhood, but I started doing it professionally at the age of 22. When I entered the VGIK (The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, a.k.a. VGIK, is a film school in Moscow, Russia.) There I studied animation, computer graphics and academic drawing, skills that help me implement any of my ideas now.
2. What are your sources of inspiration?
My main source of inspiration is people and new acquaintances. Each person is a whole universe or a mirror in which you can reflect and see yourself in a new way. And therefore see your old ideas from new and unexpected angles.
3. Can you describe your style? And its evolution?
Most of my work is in a comic or realistic manner. I like mystical or absurd stories. And also a certain amount of irony. I also like different UI designs, I weave this into my work. I’m bored of constantly drawing in the same style, although many artists try to adhere to this rule so as not to lose the audience. But I like to experiment recently, even in directing. Or creating coffins for cats haha. This is a real-life project. You can look at it in this account: coffins for cats also after I finished working on the comic book we created a small creative association ZOZAZES which included a lot of different genre artists and performers.
4. What were the different stages in your drawing process of Last of the Irin?
At first, I thought that I would have enough strength to draw the entire volume in the traditional pencil technique. But on the 2nd spread, I realized the full volume of work and realized that I would switch to digital technology. Otherwise, I would still be drawing it. Digital drawing saves a lot of time, but you still need the skills of traditional drawing, the laws of composition and understanding of color. A certain amount of viewing of poses and emotions for their transmission. My pipeline consisted of several stages:
1. search for the composition of the frame
2. 3d posing and lighting
3. Online
4. Color/ drawing
5. Colorcore
5. How long did it take you to finish the project?
I worked on the third volume of 270 pages for two and a half years.
6. What was your biggest challenge on the project? What did you learn from working on this project?
If we talk about technology, it was not difficult, as I said above, the laws work the same. But for me, as an artist who is used to working on one completed work and even short series, it was difficult to keep the similarity of the same character throughout the entire volume. It is also difficult to keep one style, I think the audience will be able to see how my style experienced various fluctuations in the course of work. Perhaps it was influenced by my mood ha-ha!
I live and was born in Russia and before this project, I practically did not speak English. It was really difficult at first. Especially when meeting with the team live and having general discussions. It took maximum concentration to catch the right meaning. It was especially funny when I drew one of the regular characters as an extra with a different face. Wildfry must have been very surprised 🙂 Another funny thing is that it so happened that before the project I read the Old Testament and sometimes it was easier for Wildfry and me to communicate with examples from there 🙂 And also draw two and a half years in the same style (even your favorite style) and bring it to the end. It was probably the most difficult test. Therefore, immediately after the project, I stopped drawing for some time at all and began to experiment more in other genres and spheres. Since the artist is probably not only about drawing. I think drawing is just one of the forms for conveying meanings through an artistic image.
7. What have you been up to since the end of your creative journey with Last of the Irin?
Well, that’s how I answered above, at first I stopped drawing at all. I was engaged in music, video, a little sculpture and even coffins for cats, and then when I started to return to illustration, I began to apply all this accumulated experience, use various animations, make more complex plots sometimes with real videos and actors. Plus, add comic moves in the form of bubbles, pop-up windows, and so on. And to complicate your visual communication language in every possible way. By the way, this is the name of the course “the art of visual communication”, which I began to conduct in parallel with other cases immediately after I finished the volume. So far it is only in Russian on the platform Design.in.sreda. When I was drawing a comic book, Wildfry always told me that I was good at the emotions of the characters. Now I like to explore how art and various methods of visual communication affect them. (on emotions).
8. Do you have a particular anecdote about your work on Last of the Irin? Anything to add?
A funny situation. Our first meeting in St. Petersburg with Wildfry was when he told me the whole plot of all three volumes. And there are murders and sex and sacrifices. We were sitting in a car with a Russian driver. In the company of a young translator girl, 18-20 years old. At that time, I looked like a shaven, muddy guy in dark glasses and a cap, and with us a strange foreigner talking about sacrifices to Baal. In the end, the driver couldn’t stand it and when Wildfry got out, the driver asked us if everything was all right and whether he should worry :))
Arseniy’s ArtStation | Instagram
