THE LIONS BOOK OF LIFE I

From time to time, I have been commissioned to illustrate the lives of some animals (bees, moles, beavers ...) I did this a few years ago. It deals with the life of lions in Africa. For the complexity of each composition I did not rely on exact photographs. In fact they do not exist or it is very difficult to have a fair document. That is why these types of realistic books are made. I think I painted 150 lions in total, of which half a dozen are based on decent pose photography. The rest of the poses were invented by me to adapt them to the circumstance. In front of me I had reference photos of various felines: tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, panthers ... For example, the illustration of the lioness about to give birth to the litter is based on a tigress.

My technique is the following:
1-first I draw sketching the various poses and compositions following my imagination for all the illustrations.
2-I use the photographs for reference. But I draw each lion about 3-4 times until I reach an optimal and believable realism. In a first session I draw animals and vegetation and then I let it rest. Step to draw a different one. Two days later I go back to what I did to redraw and my mind, which is fresh and disconnected from that first drawing, allows me to self-correct. This is very important for highly realistic images so that the poses are fluid and natural. That is, they have life.

I tried to reflect the colors of Africa on the one hand by consulting three good travel photo books. And on the other hand, I always try to capture "a feeling or emotion" in each image, relying on the palette of colors and shades.
It is made with acrylics. As I paint, I spray mist with the airbrush to capture the atmosphere of the air and the warm temperature of the sun or cool shade.