Planetary Odyssey started as my capstone project for my senior year at CCAD. I wanted to tell a story that had the reader process feelings of parental family trauma. I myself grew up with it, (dad issues) this book does not process everything. Planetary Odyssey 1 is the start of something bigger, something grander. I have started the early stages of book two and I will reveal more information at a later time.
Below are all my paintings that were done for Planetary Odyssey. I worked traditional using watercolor, gauche, and colored pencil. Store
Before we look at the rest of the paintings, I will take a moment to explain the process and ideas.
It all started with a story, which I will not spoil here. But the element for that story is Adi Eon is on an alien planet searching for something for his mother. Adi is very interested in nature, and “he” painted all of these paintings. The idea was to capture a field guide esk art book but with narrative and story.
For each painting, I started with a traditional sketch. I then moved that sketch to digital to clean it up and get the final line. After that, I would print out the sketch and either use a lightbox to trace it onto the watercolor paper or use a projector of some kind to enlarge the sketch and trace it onto watercolor paper. My approach to the watercolor changes for each image. For most of the paintings I started with a loose wet-in-wet method, and for others, I used a very tight and layered approach. I would use a lot of lifting and rubbing to soften the effect and I would use gouache and colored pencils to bring sharp details and lighting.
