Behind the Scenes: Hogwarts Greenhouse

Harry Potter is a tradition at this point in our family. Every year with the autumn time, we re-run the whole collection, preferably while building new HP Lego set as well :) So it only makes sense for me to grab some of this excitement and take it with me to work. One week less to think about a new and original idea, right?

This one was supposed to be the third diorama from HP, that gets the full texture and detail treatment, following the potions and dark arts classrooms. I thought about the other Hogwarts locations and they can be all a bit gloomy and dark. That is totally fine and on point, but when thinking about this in context of an illustration series, I always imagine them next to each other. 

What I'm looking for is a clear distinction between them and after dark and cloudy potions and classy dark arts room, I felt the need for something fresh. I fired up a quick Hogwarts search and what do you know, plants in the greenhouse look quite fresh!

Visit the full Pinboard here

As always, I started to fill my reference board with all the related images I could find. Of course, the greenhouse set from the movie is quite simple building and it would be easy to just replicate it. But where's the fun in that right?

So I expanded my serach and looked for the book illustrations and fan arts. Book illustrators often have their distinct style and view, and when hired, they are expected to bring unique feeling, no only to try to replicate authors descriptions. So a lot of interesting ideas to find there.

And same goes for the fan art. Thousands of creative people excited for the same topic can yield wonderful results. I snapped a few exmples from all of these categories and brought them into PureRef to crop out interesting details.

On some of these references, the greenhouse had rounded walls or domes. I really loved that and in combination with gothic frames, it could give interesting results. So I diverted from my classic two wall isometric room view, and tried to sketch in a rounded alcove.

With the basic layout in place, I was looking at more architectural details to fit in, because the content of the greenhouse itself - plants - would feel empty and unfinished. Luckily, on a separate hand-draw illustration, I found this wooden arch, often used as decorative ivy support.

I sketched it in, opposite to the rounded alcove, and immediately the room gained a lot of character. The rest was about fitting in some other details, like furniture with drawers, more windows and a large work table for plants and tools.

You can watch the process video on Youtube