Forest
“The little girl stopped and gasped at the magnificent sight laid down before her. Branches and tree trunks soared towards the blue skies; playful vines danced swiftly as forces of the jungle breeze blew against them lightly; the leaves whistled and rustled in the wind, lightly brushing against one another. It was as if the forest was alive and whispering to each other about the foreign presence of a tiny, insignificant human. The little girl inhaled a long, deep breath and swept away the last branch obscuring the entrance to the forest. She exhaled, gathered what courage she had and laid her first step onto the leafy forest floor, crushing the dead leaves underneath her feet. ‘Here we go.’ she thought as she nervously made her way into the depths of the forest.”
The forest was one of those places where nature worked its wonders to generate life. Hanging vines, sharp thorns, dense bushes and tall woods made up the environment and maze-like structure of the forest. My take on the forest was for it to be mystical.
Based on geographical studies, a tropical forest typically consisted of four main stratas: emergent, canopy, understory and forest floor. The play with the plants’ heights was a key factor in creating a realistic forest.
Forest Layers, referenced from http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/rainforests/graphics/strata.jpg
In order to be able to portray a more accurate albeit cartoon illustration of the trees and bushes, I took photos of floras while I was having my daily morning walk around the neighbourhood. These photos consisted of different kinds of trees with a diversity of parasitic plants, short shrubs with leaves coloured with an assortment of hues and other tiny plants which would make up the seedling and leaf litter layer of the forest.
Photo Compilation of Trees and Shrubberies
With all the references assembled and digitalized, I detached the forest portion of the cut outs from the mock-up and traced their approximate shapes onto my A3 sketchbook. These outlines served as a guide for my illustration sketches and for me to judge the sizes and ratio of the plant elements. Next, I begin sketching the basic appearance of the forest using a pencil before digitalizing it for digital painting. After transferring a photo of the sketch into my laptop, I used photoshop to digitally paint the images of the trees by enriching them with colours.
Pencil sketched woods outline with cut out guidelines
I wanted to introduce more vibrancy and ethereal quality into the design of the forest so I played with the hue/saturation option of the images. It gave spectacular and interesting results as the colours produced were unnatural and surreal but fitted the theme of a “mystical forest” aptly.
Screenshot – Trees Illustration on Photoshop
Screenshot – Forest Illustration on Photoshop
Trees Colour Manipulation
It did not take long before I added several finishing touches and concluded the design for the forest. I felt the excitement surging up within me as I was to embark on a new quest after nurturing the sprouts of the forest.
I prepared myself to take a leap of faith off the tallest wood and drench myself in the cold, refreshing waters of the river below.
Snow Lion 
