Miyazaki Hayao Inspired Watercolor Sketching - Don Nichols CAN-AM and F1 UOP SHADOW Race Team

 

Hayao Miyazaki published boat, plane , tank and other machine watercolor  works in Model Graphix over the years. 

They have been collected into books, such as these:

They are rough pencil sketches with hand written text that has been watercolor colored. They generally describe the development, the structure or some historic detail of the machines and use. They are cartooned and surrounded with cartoon characters and comics.  

They are quite rough in finish. They aren't polished illustrations or comics. I very much like that look and have done something similar with dry markers in the past.

Miyazaki has gone into the details of how he does his illustrations and storyboards. Holbein watercolors, a 2B pencil, a brush and the way he sets out his palette and approach to colors.

Recently I bought some new pens and watercolors and thought I would try something similar again. I have seen may people copy Miyazaki's style, or do Ghibli Studio like Japanese scenes. That isn't what I want to do though. I much appreciate the rough pencil lines and rough watercolor work as it is interesting and looks like it doesn't take much time to do.

Most of the commissions I do are for precise computer based vector illustrations. Making something "sloppy or rough" is actually quite hard to do and takes even longer. 

So as a break from that work I have done a little page here on Don Nichols and some of the Cars he produced for the 1970s CAN-AM and Formula 1 for his UOP  SHADOW race Team. He was involved with some real innovation, even if his team didn't win at first.  

He was also fluent in Japanese and was involved in spy stuff in US-Japan for years before he became a businessman, importing tires into Japan.

It was done on WATSON F4 300g/m sqr watercolor paper. Used Zebra Sign Brush pen and COPIC MULTILINERS. These are pretty rough caricatures of the cars and Don himself. This is the version with the hand written text on the illustration, the way Miyazaki does it. 

I didn't use 2B pencil as I tend to smudge that and I prefer the darker lines ink gives you. 

It has the roughness of the Miyazaki stuff, but it doesn't look like his work at all. It looks like mine, even if I was inspired by him.

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