Hello there!
I’m really proud to present you one of my latest illustrations today!
I’m currently trying to put together my portfolio, so I can print it by September, and hopefully have it sent to different editors before October.
I tried to think about what was missing for the moment in my portfolio, and it appeared to me that I don’t draw much animals in a “realistic” way—not that a unicorn is super realistic, but usually, the animals I draw are rather anthropomorphic—, as well as interactions between my characters.
I knew almost from the beginning that I wanted to draw a horse, but then thought that a unicorn would definitely bring something more whimsical to the illustration. While sketching this illustration, I have to admit that I had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to background to be like—I didn’t even have any ideas for the colour palette!
In the first place, I thought the unicorn would be either white with some pale blue elements on it, or pink. Actually, this would have been much more common. But while cleaning my sketch, I decided this would actually be a forest unicorn, and that the girl I had drawn next to it would wear a cape made of leaves, instead of a normal one. And that’s basically just how I decided on the new colour palette for this illustration—brown and green tones are definitely my comfort colours!
The idea with this illustration was to create a peaceful scene, as well as to depict the friendship between the girl and the unicorn, but also their relation to the forest surrounding them, which is why I used the same colours for both the background and the characters. That way, it seems to me that they’re close to their environment, and are almost a part of it.
The whimsical feel is mostly given by the lighting, from both the horn of the unicorn and its hair, but also the butterflies around them.
This post was kind of short, but I hope it was interesting enough. I’m not very used to describing illustrations or explaining the meaning of the different elements, but I thought it could still be fun to give you some insight on my process to imagine my illustrations!
Until next time!
If you want to see more of my work, you can find me on Instagram!
And, if you use Procreate too, you may be interested in my set of brushes!
Ilona Ro - Illustrations 