Behind The Scenes: Trick Or Treat

So October is in full throttle so I allowed myself to do one more Halloween theme. This time, I focused right out the bat (ha ha) on producing the illustration, that is suitable for use as a hero image on websites.

I was kind of lost in the beginning to be honest, I just knew I want some Halloween themed objects clustered in some nice composition. And for some time, I wanted to do a little bit more abstract illustration with a bit of geometric background, so I took this as an opportunity to practice this style of design.

Visit the full Pinboard here

I started the research by searching for abstract composition, like Peter Tarka and Roman Bratschi do. I know, that is far from the result, but sometimes that's the best way, to explore the extremes. And I had this idea in my head about making the background in a way a theater stage is build, with just shapes with different depth.

After that, I just collected a lot of images with multiple Halloween themed objects and some cute characters. I went all in here, Cauldrons, Jack'o'Lanterns, Witch's equipment, spiders, webs, treats, you name it. As you can see, I always look form some nice 3D style reference, but then grab a lot of 2D illustrations just for the purpose of general ideas.

This sketch was one of the harder ones. As it happens, coming up with abstract composition is a lot harder in my opinion, than just putting together a nice, tangible building diorama. That empty paper was a bit scary, so I just started sketching the general shapes and defining composition. After that, I drew in the objects and defined the background stage.

It was quite crowded, but I thought I will solve it in 3D. And boy was I right, I had to remove half of the object, when I lighted the scene and zoomed out :D It was just too unreadable. That's why there's no cauldron in the final illustration, because it was fighting for attention with the pumpkin and I had to decide.

You can see some modeling tips down below, but I thought it could be interesting to show you the scrapped version as well, so here it goes :)

That wraps the insights for the Trick or Treat illustration this week. Thanks for reading and I hope I will see some of your spooky work too!