Good Day my beautiful friends!
How many times have you come up with a brilliant idea, but got jammed up when you tried to lay it out on paper? Drawing straight from imagination is a talent that only the most magical creatures possess. I wish I could tell you I was one of them. Never fear! In my quest to bring my arty brain juices to paper, I’ve come up with a few hacks that will help you bring your imagination to life in your work.
How to Draw From Imagination
If you’re one of the magical creatures I talked about earlier, please tell me your secrets, share your potion, let us take a peek at your spellbook. If you’re not, I’ve got a few tips for you!
Combine References to Frankenstein Your Idea
In my last post, I talked about my illustration process and how I put my pieces together from start to finish. I go over why I love using Photoshop to create composites. When I have something totally weird in my brain, I need to see it laid out to draw it. For example, I want to make a tiger mermaid. I can take a photo of a tiger and a photo of a koi fish and use Photoshop to combine them! This gives me enough of a visual idea to draw from. You can make this composite as detailed as you need. For me, as long as I can see the form, position, and structure I can add the details and texture later.
If you’re into magical creatures you’ll probably start to notice that they’re almost all combinations of different animals you see in real life or giant versions of regular animals. Mermaid = Human + Fish. Hippogriff = Horse + Eagle. This knowledge is EVERYTHING. While you can’t casually go for a walk and catch some photos of a hippogriff (if you can please share the location,) you can totally find photos of horses and eagles online and combine them to make your creature.
Disclaimer. When using reference, make sure to request permission from the photographer or use royalty-free images.
Use Real Life as a Base for Your Magic
This is another one of my favorite tactics. When you see magic portrayed in movies or described in books, these creators are building off of things that already exist. If you want to create a magic landscape start with an image of a regular forest. What needs to be in your forest to create the magic? Are the trees different shapes or colors? Does anything glow? What kind of creatures live there? What do their homes look like?
Using real-life as a starting point and diving into these questions will turn something basic into something extraordinary without you having to pull it out of nowhere.
Study, Study, Study & By That I Mean Stare at Shit
You heard me twice the first time. How can you expect to draw from imagination or memory without having a bank of images stored in your head? Your mind is kind of like a computer. The more information stored inside, the more information you can pull up when you need it. The best and simplest way to stock your brain is to sit down and stare at things.
If you want to draw a zebra from imagination, spend some time at your local zoo, or even Google. Look at a ton of images. Get as close as you can. Experience the texture, the movement, the patterns. See how the hairs lay over each other. Are they shiny when the sun hits? The more things you study with this intensity the easier it will be to draw from memory in the future.
Books As Inspiration
My favorite place to find inspiration, and my very favorite place to be, is inside a great book. Books paint pictures with words. If the author is truly on their game they’ll put such a clear image in your head, you couldn’t decipher it from a real memory. You lived that moment with that character. That phenomenon is what inspired me to start drawing.
I spend every possible minute of my free time consuming stories like I’m starving for them. I love the feeling of living incredible adventures, walking through magical lands, battling, or loving fantastical beasts. Sometimes I come to a point in the story where the picture is so clear, I HAVE TO make it exist in a tangible way that I can share. That’s what happened when I read Caraval by Stephanie Garber.
Caraval
I don’t want to give too much away, but the Caraval Series is magic from start to finish. The story is brilliant, the twists are unique, it’s intriguing and keeps you guessing the whole way through. Not to mention, the way Stephanie Garber paints her scenes is unmatched.
The scene that inspired this piece is from Finale, the third book in the trilogy. I was laying in bed, but when I read about Legend’s Midnight Maze I felt like I was there. “Tella didn’t know what pure anticipation smelled like until she reached Legend’s Midnight Maze.” I was a young girl with bouncing blonde hair running through the walls of sparkling flowers. “Burning orange starfire lilies. Deep purple twilight thistles. Brilliant gold creeping faisies.” I could see the walls grow and transform around me, “Each living wall was formed of different rare flowers...It moved more rapidly than before, growing taller and thicker and stronger.” I felt the butterflies on my dress come to life and lead me to Legend. “Tella laughed as the butterflies burst free from a skirt that had been inanimate only moments ago.” I was IN.
Finding the Perfect Snapshot
What I need you to understand is that I didn’t have an image in my head, I had a movie. A memory. The footage was rolling, I was walking, discovering, observing. The flowers were blooming, glowing, and growing right in front me. The sky was enchanted and I could feel the magic in the air. How in the world am I supposed to put this on one, single sheet of paper?
For me, one of the hardest parts of drawing from imagination is choosing the perfect snapshot. It feels like trying to take a picture of the moon with a phone. It will never portray all of the wonder you’re experiencing but damn if you’re not going to try. I create sketch after sketch, trying to fit as much of the movie in as possible.
Do I need to make 10 drawings to capture every angle? If I can see everything that’s happening how can I show all of the small details that bring it to life? If I zoom in too far how will I show all of the crazy things happening in the background? Am I seeing the situation through the character’s eyes or do I want the character included in the image?
So I keep coming at it. Sketching and searching for reference photos until I feel like I can really do it justice. Thus this drawing was born.
The Final Piece: Legend’s Midnight Maze
Legend’s Midnight Maze by Kailey Lauren Kay
The magic clothes held so much weight in the story that I knew I had to include the dress. To try, in some way, to bring it to life. I tried to capture the glow and the ambiance of Legend’s magic by playing with light. I wanted you to feel the walls around you. I wanted you to see the path leading you to a destination you couldn’t wait to reach. I wanted it to have movement and change color so I had to use my sparkly holographic pens to bring the image to life. After a long time struggling to get it just right, I’m so proud of how the piece came out!
Finale
Drawing from imagination doesn’t have to be impossible. Take the steps to bring your vision to life. Maybe one day, after years of practice, you’ll be so awesome that you don’t need hacks anymore. You can just get it done!
In the meantime, I hope to God they make these books into movies. I would absolutely love to see what a film crew could do with the enchanting world of Caraval. Heck, I would love to work on the crew that has the privilege of bringing this world to life!
If you’d like to take a stroll through Legend’s Midnight Maze, do yourself the favor of reading these books! If you never want to forget that journey, click the link below to visit my print shop!