DISCOVER THE THOUGHT BEHIND THIS FANCIFUL DIGITAL PAINTING
TRAPPED
KATARZYNA BABIS
O
riginally from Lublin, Poland, Katarzyna
Babis (beiibis.deviantart.com) started to
draw professionally during her first year in
college. Since then she has developed
through working for small publishing houses, gaining
recognition and more commissions along the way.
Now a freelance illustrator and comic book author,
the talented 22-year-old’s most recent project was
called Maia The Moon Princess – a children’s picture
book that she wrote and illustrated herself.Babis created Trapped during some spare time
between projects. She admits that, “drawing
mermaids [has been] kind of my guilty pleasure
since I can remember. I think they are the very
centre of my comfort zone.”
Although Trapped started out as a random
drawing, Babis decided to use it as an opportunity to
improve her portfolio a little, thinking “It [needed]
some detailed illustrations with multiple characters,
nice flow and decent composition. It [needed]01
ROUGH SKETCHING
I planned the composition and
the general feel of the illustration.02
SETTING UP THE COLOURS
I defined the colours, using the contrast
of cold blue and warm orange tones to create the
atmosphere of a sunny day at the beach.storytelling. And then the idea just came to me... At
first I made a rough sketch to define the
composition, It didn’t take long, as I had a very clear
concept of what I want to achieve with it... Then I set
up my colour scheme. I decided to use my favourite
trick – to contrast warm, soft orange tones with
cold, turquoise highlights... Then I had to focus on
the emotions of every character. Especially the
mermaid. My experience in comics turned out to be
really helpful in that part.”03
GETTING IT DONE
I added details, highlights,
textures and made finishing touches.HOW I MADE TECHNIQUES