Illustrating Wings and Dynamic Compositions

I am happy to announce that my "Cover Story" exhibit that was up at Artifactory is going to have a new location! It is moving to Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building (PBDB) on the University of Iowa Campus. The art will be up from November 8 to March 1, 2024, with the building accessible to visitors from 7am-6pm Monday-Friday. This is a beautiful location on the skywalk between buildings. They even have a Java house in PBDB so you can grab a coffee while browsing. There will be a short reception on Nov 16 from 4:30-5:30pm. All are welcome!

With all of the busyness this year, I did not get around to sharing one of my favorite covers. It's a YA fantasy with bird people and dragons. What's not to love? I will share how I refined this composition to make it more dynamic and how I utilized reference material for believable wings. 

Below are the preliminary sketches featuring two of the main characters. It was a no brainer to include a dragon and it was also important to show the relationship between the two characters. That narrowed down the scope of possibilities, which is helpful when you have a hundred directions to go in for a book cover.

We went with the third sketch which has the best narrative clarity showing the two characters preparing to fight the dragon. It also illustrated the spirit world from the novel in the top part of the composition, which gave it an advantage over the other two. 

For this cover, I branched out to explore expressive glyphs in the title font. There were also key elements in the composition to utilize for overlap effects, such as the floating shapes. I made an effort to give the title some effervescence by using loopy letters that complimented the wispy background. 

With the concept phase completed, I set out gathering my usual reference material for all parts of the illustration. I use indirect reference for nature-based content, like wings. Keep in mind that wings are just big flappy hands, which is a helpful basis for anatomy and disturbing thoughts of chicken people. 

Above is my page of reference just for wings. I look up the birds that the figures are based on and use a flying fox for the dragon wings. Pro tip is to use big bats instead of small bats for dragon wing reference as the proportions and physics will be closer. Big bat wings are really bendy under all that weight and the anatomy is easier to see. Also they're cute, so treat yourself.

You might ask why I have so many bird wing references? This is because there is no perfect reference wrapped into one image (unless you pose a model or maquette), so I have one photo that gives insight into back-lighting, another for the general pose, and then one photo might be perfect for just one of the wings. 

These are the 3D models I used for the figures and the dragon. This gives me the best information for lighting, anatomy, and perspective. It's not the perfect reference, but I can synthesize it with my reference photos of real animals to get the right balance of realism and believability. Both of these models are from Daz3D, which is my go-to for people especially because I can pose quickly and customize faster than models built from scratch. 

Here is an annotated version of the characters to help you understand what I take or don't take from the reference image. I am making comparisons to the cover sketch of the figures and decide what is a helpful improvement and what should be disregarded in terms of lighting and pose. Most of the reference from this image is adopted, but the poses of the hands are not naturalistic. I take some photos of my own hands, which gives me better reference. 

That's about half of my reference material for this book, so there is even more where this came from. Good, accurate reference material is your friend!

Here Be dragons and Illustration Resources

Fantasy illustration is all about picturing things that don't exist (like dragons), which begs the question of how to create a sense of realism. The book cover I designed for A.P. Couiteaux is a good example as it melds elements that do exist in the real world with the fantastical.

This book was just released on Kindle. Check it out if you like fantasy with a spice of sci fi.

After reading through the novel and discussing composition goals with the author, I created my typical three sketches. This cover is a full spread, which is an exciting “landscape” aspect ratio to work with. My task is to make sure the art works when cropped to just the front, but still has a nice visual flow from back-to-front.

The preliminary concepts:

Even from the earliest sketches, I found it helpful to have placement for the title text, turning the layer on and off when I wanted to focus just on painting. The final composition (below) combined two concepts from the preliminary sketches, focusing on the first sketch and incorporating the back side of the second sketch.

Now comes the challenge of fitting all of the text elements without creating clutter.

Below is the final text layout, color scheme, and art composition. This is important to do before polishing the artwork. There is less worry if a major change needs to be made during the sketchy stage to accommodate text. This layout is for hardcover, hence the interior flaps.

Now I am ready to dive into gathering photo reference. My aim for reference is to learn about the structure of lighting and anatomy that will inform my artwork, but not by pursuing "detail" in the traditional sense of realism. I enjoy realism that focuses on mood over detail, just like a Pixar movie can have "cartoony" 3D characters that feel life-like.

Let’s dive in to one of my favorite resources: 3D models!

I like to use 3D models for most of my reference, which I might build from scratch if it’s really simple, but most often I combine and alter existing models from free 3D model websites. The only big challenge for 3d model reference is getting natural-looking clothing folds, so I will usually take a few selfies for that.

I construct, add lighting, and render images using Blender (also free). Blender is not an easy software to use, but if you are opening existing models and adding a few light sources, you only need to learn a few tools inside the program.

Here is a look at the Blender interface. Eve says hi.

 Here is a more complete list of the free resources I use for my reference, they are:

  • Blender

    My main 3D modeling software

  • Daz3D

    another 3D modeling software more focused on posing human models. Not as comprehensive as Blender, but more user-friendly

  • Mixamo

    Auto-rigging for your humanoid models to then pose in Blender. Also has a couple of free character 3D Models

  • Sketchfab-

    My favorite website for free 3D models. They have a 3D viewer, which is nice for quick reference as well as downloadable models

  • Quixel

    A really amazing library of 3D scanned models. I haven't tried this one yet, but it's on my radar. Requires an add-on to import the files to Blender

  • Grabcab

    A great website for more technical 3D models, like vehicles and furnishings. Not the best for downloading (file conversion needed), but has a built-in 3D viewer

  • CGtrader

    A smaller selection and not as high quality as sketchfab, but free is free. Account required.

  • Turbosquid

    Another free 3D Model option. Account required.

I don’t always shy away from paid 3D models. If it saves you time, it’s worth every penny and you can probably use for future reference as well.

A pro tip for rigging non-human, imaginary creature 3D models like dragons: skip the rigging. I find it faster to cut up the model in sections and just rotate limbs to the desired angle for the pose. The wings I used for my dragon (which actually do need to be rigged) come from a pre-rigged bat model. Some mythical creatures are more or less real animals with added components, like unicorns. Just stick a horn on that horse. Work smarter, not harder.

Here is the final spread for Eve Archer! Online 3D models and other virtual resources are more abundant than ever and give you a great degree of control and creativity for implementation.


Fantastical Art for Your Fantastical Friends!

If you haven’t heard: I have originals, prints, stationery, and more goodies on my Etsy Store with Cyber Weeks Sales happening as we speak. Check out my store for all the details.