Over on the science side of illustration...

Hello everyone!

January has blown by (as did that blizzard here on Jeju, taking all the warmth and my trust in nature with it) and this is only my second blog post.

This month was dominated by science illustration jobs.

Yes, there were some other commissions thrown in there, but they barely made a ripple in the sea of biology, botany, anatomy...

Maybe I should mention that science illustration - or 'Scientific Visualization' - is what I graduated in back in good ol' 2013. These jobs aren't coming out of the blue.

For example, my bachelor project on molecular depictions of Alzheimer's disease (trying to combine modern fields of science with traditional illustration media like pencil...) led to a recent commission of biology illustrations, focusing on cells and molecules. 

Cute little plant cell~

Or this infographic/drawing/chaos depicting a hurricane in pencil and digital coloring led to similar projects:

Pencil, A3 paper, and lots of patience in Photoshop...

... and now a very simple adaption of that style.

And an old study of the muscles of a hand (which was drawn based on sketches made during a very long, very disturbing session in a very cool and smelly part of the local medicine school) ...

... brought about a small series of anatomy art commissions.

Yeah. I just might have a tendency to enjoy grotesque (?) subjects, made up all pretty and colorful.

This rag-tag series of commissions made me realise several points I want to improve on. 

So, here's to my good intentions for 2016!

~ Draw more realistic illustrations

~ Rediscover media like colored pencils (I've been too focused on watercolors for a while, I believe... Still my favorite material, but I want to discover new techniques!)

Which means:

Project 1: I'll draw one realistic (...let's hope) portrait in my sketchbook each week, rotating media.

Or maybe some silly little studies like this~

Project 2: Tackle a series on local plants, typical for Jeju island or South Korea in general. Old-school botany illustrations, hopefully combined with some trips around the island to take pictures and make sketches. 

Started on the nutmeg tree - there's a nutmeg tree forest right around the corner from where I live!
"Bijarim"

I won't try my hand at anything like 'daily drawings' - I draw every single day, anyway, and creating additional sketches would just get in the way of my work. But one portrait a week sounds more than doable (and I can do some round-up blog post each month) and will help me improve anyway! 

Drawing plants is pure joy, and I've wanted to do something specific to Korea and Jeju for a while. 

Very pumped!