This is a repost of an archived article originally published on my Patreon a few years ago. Enjoy!

So begins my first book illustration, a double spread of the city of Ora.

If you've reach Chapter One (a free ebook download when you sign up for my email newsletter) then you might be familiar with this shot - this is a view of Ora from the lifts, looking down at it in the glimmering morning light.

Some very close crop details...

Enough of the gratuitous detail shots! Let’s get in to the nitty gritty of how I made this illustration.

To start, here is the reference that I created in VR using Gravity Sketch to quickly lay in some rough rock shapes and build up the large rock that Ora is made up of. I used the map that I had already created of the city (above) as a rough template for scale and worked on top of it.

I do want to be clear that prior to this stage of working I had already sketched out a very loose idea for the angle and subject matter of this illustration in thumbnail form.

Currently I have chapters 1-4 thumbnailed out and will be illustrating these first in a chunk.

Next began the tedious task of adding line using my handy reference. Here it isn't quite finished, still lacking a few details and rocks in what will be the central fold area. I had to scoot Ora over so that it does not end up in this fold as well. Knowing the page sizes and finished product dimensions as I work has definitely made my job easier and I know I won't be tweaking things too much down the road. The page here is about 13in wide and 10in or so tall so I've a generous amount of space to work in. It's important that I remain consistent throughout the book with line weights however.

I follow this with a rough color comp so I can really feel where things are headed. I borrowed a lot of colors from my map since I'd already decided the general color scheme of the city but I plan to light is with more of a soft golden light.

And to make sure that my linework is large enough and the details aren't getting lost on the page, here is one of the work-in-progress print-outs folded into a book that is the same size as this one is going to be. Doesn't that look cool!?

(For reference, the finished size of the book is  6.625in by 10.25in.)

I can't wait to show you the next one that I am working on! Soon!