EYE ON DESIGN PROJECT FOCUS
I
t’s now been four years since award-winning
illustrator Bartosz Kosowski first quit his
regular job to focus solely on his art, and he’s
been gaining more and more recognition ever
since, creating work for everything from the New
Yorker to Newsweek. His illustrations have
garnered him awards from American Illustration,
European Design Awards and Associazione
Culturale Good Design.
Kosowski’s latest editorial illustration project,
however, was more personal than most. He’d been
commissioned to create his very own interpretation
of Terry Pratchett’s infamous Discworld for a
double page opening illustration in Wysokie Obcasy
Extra magazine.
“As a teenager I was a huge fan of Discworld
and I read lots of Pratchett’s books so you can
imagine how excited I was about this particular
commission,” Kosowski begins. “Redrawing
Discworld is a bit like re-interpreting John Lowe
and Alan Lee’s Middle-earth – there is always the
risk that the fans will see that you did something
wrong. So though the art director gave me total
freedom and told me to do it my way, I didn’t want
to go too far away from the original concept.”
Instead of creating the Discworld universe
from scratch, Kosowski decided to re-interpret
Josh Kirby’s iconic Discworld illustration,
bringing the familiar shapes and figures into his
unique style. As with all his illustration work,
Photoshop was crucial from the beginning.HOW WERE YOU FIRST APPROACHED TO
CREATE THIS BEAUTIFUL DISCWORLD
PIECE FOR WYSOKIE OBCASY EXTRA
MAGAZINE?
I have been working with Wysokie Obcasy Extra
magazine for a few years now and I have done
plenty of illustrations for them.
All these illustrations, however, had been
editorial pieces for psychological articles on
such issues as assertiveness, breaking up or
positive thinking. So when the art director
contacted me again with the idea of drawing a
Discworld piece, it did come as a bit of surprise.HOW DID YOU DEVELOP THE INITIAL IDEA,
COMPOSITION, AND COLOUR PALETTE FOR
THE PROJECT?
The task was to create a double page opening
illustration that would be my own interpretation of
[Pratchett’s] Discworld.The choice of composition was somehow
limited by the page layout that I was provided
with [just like most editorial-led illustration]. I
knew that I had to leave some space on the
left-hand side for the article title and the lead and
therefore I had to focus on the right-hand side
and place the focal point there.
Apart from that, I was free to do it ‘my way’,
using the colours I like. I decided to go for the
retro palette of muted browns and greens with a
pinch of blue as I felt it would simply look good
and would correspond with depictions of the
Discworld universe that every Pratchett fan is
familiar with.WHICH WACOM CINTIQ DID YOU USE? WHAT
DID YOU LIKE ABOUT USING IT?
I used the new Wacom Cintiq 27 HD touch and I
must say that I like it quite a lot. Before I got it, I
had used Intuos 5 L for a few years and though
it worked really well for me, the Cintiq’s biggest
advantage is that you can work more freely. It
is much closer to the analogue drawing
experience and therefore more natural to use.
Plus, the amount of pixels that you get here and
the QHD display quality is absolutely fantastic.
Of course, being an early adopter, you have
to deal with some glitches that hopefully will be
ironed out eventually but overall, the new Cintiq
experience is amazing.
I also use the Wacom Ergo stand and it does
help a lot when you draw several hours a day. It
lets you adjust the tablet to the position that is
most convenient for you so that you don’t have to
lean over the screen all the time, which is
definitely good for your back.COULD YOU TAKE US THROUGH THE
WORKFLOW THAT WENT BEHIND CREATING
YOUR DISCWORLD ILLUSTRATION?
First, I did the research on the topic and went
through all the possible Discworld interpretations
that I could Google, studied the anatomy of the
great sea turtles and elephants and then simply
started sketching.
Once the sketch was ready and given the
green light by the art director, I inked the piece
digitally. This took me a while as the illustration
is quite detailed and I always try to keep the
linework very precise. Next, I began colouring
the elements starting with the basic shapes such
as the turtle’s body or scales and then goingABOUT THE ARTIST
Bartosz Kosowski is an illustrator
based in Lodz, Poland.
Kosowski runs Blackbird
Illustration studio, working on
various projects from portraits to
editorial illustrations. His Lolita
poster for a San Francisco Stanley
Kubrick exhibition recently
received two gold medals from
the Society of Illustrators New
York and Los Angeles.BARTOSZ KOSOWSKI
http://www.bartoszkosowski.comDISCWORLD
NAME OF PROJECT
WE CATCH UP WITH AWARDWINNING ILLUSTRATOR BARTOSZ KOSOWSKI TO
FIND OUT ABOUT HIS ILLUSTRATION OF TERRY PRATCHETT’S DISCWORLDHONOURING PRATCHETT
Self-portrait