Villa Incognito

Villa Incognito is a Tom Robbins novel I thought it would be fun to illustrate. I pulled together all kinds of images of tanuki and kitsune, references from Hokusai, Japanese legends and even Amano's art in The Dream Hunters but none of my designs felt right. One little scribble I did while planning all this was of the girl throwing up a chrysanthemum and this morning that drawing came together.

First I sketched in blue pencil- a trick I've been trying out lately to good effect.
Then I inked right over it with brush and india ink.
Next I got out my bamboo sumie brush to do the flower. Then scanned.



With the help of a few new photoshop brushes from http://chriswahlartbrushes.blogspot.com/

I'm pretty happy with the result! I think I need to loosen up more and push the brush ink and watercolor angle some more.