What was the inspiration behind Folklore?
When I was developing the initial idea, I was thinking about how lovely and peaceful it would be to sleep in a forest full of lush ferns and gentle animals. I wanted to create a full, rich, completely hand-painted design that felt like being all wrapped up in the darkest, quietest parts of the forest.
Can you walk us through the development process?
I began by collecting lots of nature photography of animals, ferns, and forest foliage for inspiration. I then made a bunch of initial sketches before transferring my favourites to watercolour paper. For the animals I used watercolour paints in warm grey and soft neutral browns, and olive green for the ferns and leaves. Once the paint dried, I scanned up all the artwork and made some final adjustments on my iPad. After that, it was all put together on the computer to create a lush forest scene with lots of sweet animals amongst the ferns.
We sampled up a few different base colour options, but in the end decided to go with a dark green base to reinforce that cosy feeling, like being in the depths of a mossy forest.
One of the challenges with this design was figuring out how to create that soft, painterly feeling while also keeping the detailed illustration work that keeps the animals looking realistic.
After some playing around, I decided that the best approach would be to loosely paint all the bases of the animals by hand then add those final details and textures digitally. The watercolour paints really bring a dreamy quality to the animals, while adding layers of detail on my iPad allowed me to bring the animals to life with a bit more control.
Are there any specific details you like about this design?
One of my favourite aspects of this design is how much is hidden behind the ferns and leaves. The more you look, the more you see. There are lots of little mushrooms, butterflies, and hedgehogs waiting to be found. I think that it’s these small details that make a design really special.
