"Arcane: In a Nutshell" Retrospective (Patreon)

You may recall that a short time ago I worked on some backgrounds for Arcane: In a Nutshell. The team was putting together a project retrospective for their Patreon and I was asked to write something. I decided to give an overview of my process for each piece. Here's what I wrote, along with some WIPs.

Hi, I’m JG Houston, one of the illustrators who worked on the backgrounds for Arcane: In a Nutshell, Act 2. Here’s a quick look into the workflow behind my pieces.

Concept

I’m embarrassed to admit, but I still have never seen Arcane myself. Truly shameful. As a result, I depend heavily on the reference material that I’m provided with. Sometimes creating a background is a simple, 1:1 translation of an existing screenshot. Other times however, it is required that I combine multiple different shots into one image.

Sketch

Because of the more stage-like presentation of In a Nutshell, perspective is often flat when compared to the official show. When sketching out the scene, I have to consider how the characters will be placed on this “stage” and what they’ll be doing, so I usually draw in figures for reference. Since all that matters is their scale, these figures can look very goofy.

Thumbnail

In my workflow, I draw each shape on its own layer, then lock the alpha channel, letting me paint within each shape. Before painting the final piece though, I like to duplicate and merge my layers so that I can create a color thumbnail—a shrunk-down painting that lets me quickly plan out the scene. Though I have official reference material for colors, I instead use my own, more cartoony, colors.

Final

Thanks to all the prep work, the final piece usually comes together relatively quick. It’s generally just a matter of copying my mini-thumbnail, but with slightly more detail. I avoid getting too detailed though, because otherwise the style will lose some of its cartooniness, which I feel would go against the animation’s overall tone.