Hi! I’m Katie! Welcome to the first of my Sigil Art Blogs! I hope you enjoy!
When I first joined CallersBooks as an editor and illustrator, I had limited experience as an artist. My confidence in working as one relied predominantly on my enthusiasm for learning. This report gives an insight into the skills I have been able to develop with Procreate this past year.
Purposefully created as part of a collection that belongs together, the Star sigil became the focus for redesign, as it is carried by our main protagonist, Mira Holt. While Xin insisted that my artwork showcase my independent style, I wanted to adequately reflect his and Kat’s vision. I began with the written description from the book’s narrative:
“A single dark circle sat in the centre.
Four long points reached north, south, east, and west respectively;
with a shorter point between each.”
(Xin Graves, Callers: Emergence. S1, E4: Hunted.)
From the description, and considering the in-world detail of these Sigils being naturally occurring, I imagined and drew rounded blades, like spearheads, rather than the elongated triangles shown in Xin’s original sketch. However, discussing these fundamental differences in design, I remarked that his version looked odd, too sharp, and upon seeing my example, he agreed to compromise in favour of some roundness. We kept exchanging ideas of sharp and sleek versus rounded and soft, and were able to create the new design.
The Dynamic Sigil Art pieces are designed to reflect the Essence Form as a whole, incorporating as many important elements as possible while remaining visually pleasing. This has been an amazing experience; I’ve always enjoyed playing with the different colours of a night sky, and space, so using this history to inform some choice, I began with the background. This is created using several layers of the Luminance: Nebula brush in Procreate, with pink, purple, blues, and black, then overlaying stars using the Luminance: Glimmer brush. This helped create a multi-dimensional image reminiscent of such a backdrop; I’m quite proud of the final look of this background!
For the Star itself, we wanted to represent the different stages of the Star Caller’s power, and display her abilities in their various forms. Of the two Dynamic pieces shown here, The Cracked Star portrays the Star Caller nearing a stage called “Supernova”, which both reflects the devastation caused by the previous Star Caller’s power, and foreshadows Mira Holt’s own danger. Designed as a transition between the Star and the North Star, the base was created using the purple grunge brush over the black Star, followed by a purple outline placed on top. I hand drew the cracks in black, then copied and brightened that to white before using the smudge brush to create the white light beams. The white gravitational effect at the centre is a series of brush strokes done using the symmetry tool to create a proper spiral. The distorted coloured light (outline) behind the Cracked Star is the “Chromatic Aberration” setting in Procreate, applied to a separate layer on the White Star. Together, these techniques and effects create a powerful image for this stage of the Star Caller’s arc.
The Bleak Star uses the same centre spiral and background as the North Star, but is created with a variety of outlines, layered with colour blending and blurring. Simple, but effective; it creates a completely new look to reflect this stage of Mira’s powers.
Finally, after seeing other Dynamic designs, Xin wanted to add just a bit more flare to Star. So, he downloaded some free assets and combined them with my designs to produce the Dark Star, showing the fusion of the light and dark aspects of the Star Caller, and foreshadowing Mira’s turmoil between her darkest desires and brightest beliefs.
