Art is usually an expression of the artist rendered on his canvas. The moments that he captured which he felt so profound. But sometime the subject itself has its own expression. The expression that could be one in a lifetime or could be perpetual. But non is so iconic like the Palestinian kids throwing stones at the Israel Defense Force.
That defiant pose inspired the cover design of book 1. It is taken from one of the scene in the book. It is nearly impossible to draw something that is dark. Since the concept of Palestine 3000 A.D. is film noir mixed with graffiti, rules can be broken. Given the lights I could bend reality.
The illustration was done digitally using Wacom Intuos 4. The software was Corel Painter 11 and the graphics were done in Photoshop and Illustrator. It is kind of inverse drawing that is it is not painted on white background. Black and white are painted on grey. The main medium is oil pastel. Solid lines were drawn with ink and 2B pencil. Certain fill areas were done with soft air brush. Collectively it looks like a graffiti.
The only problem was the light rays. As a 3D artist I am quite used to soft foggy light rays. To blend with the graffiti look I have to use a coarse airbrush. Fortunately there is a variant that is named ‘graffiti’ that gave me exactly what I wanted.
The wonderful thing drawing digitally is the paints remain wet. I could erase and re-blending it at anytime. The final work is the 10th iteration. This the final look of Palestine 3000 A.D.
