J
apanese freelance illustrator Mana Ikeda
(www.illfigment.com) explains that, “Every
time I create a new piece, I come up with a
character and their basic story before I draw...
For this piece, my character is Stella – a curious girl
who loves insect collecting and all things nature.”
Although she doesn’t like to reveal these stories
to viewers of the artwork – “I don’t openly share mystory because I love hearing what other people
think,” Ikeda explains – it’s a vital part of her
compositional process. “By creating a life event into
some form of an object, I get a bizarre character
design and use it to my advantage.”
Ikeda has her own experience of how events can
affect the course of life. Trained at both the Art Students
League and the School of Visual Arts in New York,01
INKED SKETCH
First I scanned my inked sketch. When I scan my drawings, I clean the dust
and shadows using the Dodge tool. Then I use Channel selection to get rid of the
white background. I selected the Channel by using Cmd/Ctrl+Opt/Alt+2 and deleted
it. Next I locked transparency and filled it with black.02
PAINTING
I first colour underneath the line art and then paint over it. I like to keep the
roughness of the initial sketch so I don’t completely cover it. I used three custom
brushes to paint over it. The first custom brush I used was one that closely resembled
a pastel chalk to draw the entire painting. Then I made a star brush by using the default
Hard Round brush, and set it so that it scatters in different sizes. I used the hexagonal
brush to scatter this near the bottom of my piece to give it a digital effect.03
COMPLETE
I adjusted the colours and added
a background. When I finished colouring
the piece, it looked like every other piece
I drew (dark and unsaturated). I was
stuck and then I started listening to
happy music. All of the sudden, I was
tweaking the colour bars, adjusting the
saturation to +50, and using the Line tool
(which I never used before) to make
geometric shapes for the background.money worries forced her to leave and to reboot her
illustration career in her native Japan. “It’s been five
years since then and even though there are heavy ups
and downs, I’m planning on releasing my first art book
soon,” she says. “It’s about a cursed world where each
person’s personal experience becomes a part of their
appearance. I’m thinking about naming the series
Ipseity, which means individuality.”HOW I MADE TECHNIQUES
JAPANESE ILLUSTRATOR MANA IKEDA EXPLAINS THE
PROCESS BEHIND HER UNIQUELY BEAUTIFUL WORKSTELLA
MANA IKEDA
By creating a life event into some form of
an object, I get a bizarre character design
and use it to my advantage