Making Mago
How we shaped each other.
Where we left off
In this post I told you about how the idea of having a mascot for a hypothetical shop led us to create Mago and Ash, what I’m bringing you today is the story of how they have changed throughout the first 5 years since that day.
2018
So let’s go back to 2018, having just come up with the idea for the Magic Lantern and making this sketch of Mago and his Lantern, who at the time did not have a name. This has been one of the more challenging things to do, and I’d go through several different names before arriving to Ash.
There were a lot of influences in this original sketch, at one point or another I’ve gone through each of them and considered alterations, and for most of them I made the changes.
So from here on out most of the story of Mago is also the story of my artistic journey. They are weaved into each other, and each drawing was made with a purpose, be it learning a new program, or creating products (none of which ever made any money), or putting a new art technique into practice.
My first big idea was to start with something straightforward: I can make a simple story, turn it into a colouring book and start making some money to fund more of the project. This idea was flawed from the start and I’ll tell you more about it soon.
Not knowing how to use Photoshop and not having a drawing tablet I thought I’d start by using Illustrator with a mouse and keyboard, as vectors would give me very clean drawings for printing, I still can’t believe how hard I made my life from the start, but that’s out this first painted version of Mago came to be.
I remember being very happy with the result, learned a new software and brought some life into the original sketch, the process was difficult and I wasn’t completely happy with the gradient on the tail but spirits where high.
Not soon after I made a whole 12 pages using this very slow process
2019
As I finished that first colouring book I had learned so much about the process I was convinced it could have been much better, so I storyboarded it all over again and redid it, and on top of that made a whole second book with animals and creatures from the world of Obalan.
I decided to go all in and invest on an XP-Pen drawing tablet, I was determined to make this work and my process was slow and clunky, so I then learned how to use Photoshop and thought to try my hand at something ambitious, an idea for the cover of a future story book.
I still like the general idea and composition, but this whole process planted a seed that took far too long a time to realize it was there - that drawing was far more frustrating than I wanted it to be.
For the next few months it was a slow but natural progression, I was busy trying to set up a business with the colouring books and other merchandise, and trying my hand at social media for the first time, these where mostly done with that in mind. The general design of Mago remained the same throughout this time.
Having spent nearly a year working on this project now, I had a lot of ideas for the stories I wanted to tell and the characters in then. I was hankering for a big ambitious project, we needed something big, how about a full illustration with all the characters I’d imagined so far, and even be so bold as to paint a landscape for the first time.
I was so underprepared it’s actually ridiculous, but perseverance prevailed and I slogged through to make this poster, one that is now very precious to me.
Maybe it’s time to call it quits?
By the time we came out of the other end though, it was obvious there is a huge discrepancy between what I want to do and my ability.
I had crashed from the peak of Mount Stupid all the way down to the bottom of the Valley of Despair in the Dunning-Krueger effect. On top of that, the products I had developed to fund this didn’t pan out and I was sitting on top of boxes of products I can’t move, so, this was a pivotal moment where I decided to double down and be in it for the long haul, I’m going to need a few years before trying again, and thus the training began.
And as soon as I was getting back up I took another blow, the name I had grown attached to for the flame in the lantern, “Az”, was also the name of a small cute character from the popular animation series Wakfu. They are similar in a few superficial ways, but too many to let them have the same name, even though their stories and personalities are distinct.
So for a little while he rocked the name Bluu, although it always felt like it didn’t fit, so it didn’t last long.
2020
This was the start of fighting off the hardships of drawing and painting, the first one I tackled was the lack of control, I couldn’t draw the same character twice and make it look similar enough, though often I still draw characters slightly different from previous versions, but now at least it’s on purpose, I just get bored unless I’m iterating with a purpose.
I had a specially hard time making characters look a specific age, turns out it’s all about playing with proportions, but it took a minute to get there.
First course I took seriously was a Character Design course from Scott Harris on Skillshare.com, an excellent starting point for beginner me, I felt that little surge of power being able to intentionally build a character from imagination.
This is also where I started to question Mago’s design and make it more my own. It felt quite scary, you want to make the right choices but who knows what those are.
I got rid of Mago’s gloves and large shoes, they felt a bit too Disney-ish, at this point I was trying to distance my art a bit from any influences because of the Wakfu faux pax. The lantern also got a practical redesign, I realised It could only be placed hanging and that it would get in the way of the storytelling.
Then I started focusing on subjects one by one, this study of perspective made me really excited about wanting to fill the world with detail. I dropped the colour and focused only on storytelling and perspective, I still rather enjoy the end result, I could easily imagine Mago walking in for the first time and getting lost in the vastness of it.
Next we tackled anatomy, and with those studies came a couple other changes to the character.
I studied anatomy from Marc Brunet’s art school for digital artists on Cubebrush.com, another excellent course with more content than I could handle. Part of it takes you through game development workflow, one that I had no use for, but all of the subjects are explained in great depth, and at the time it was incredible value for the amount of content.
We finally settled on having a fully green tail, and shorts, but I felt that the style was too realistic (if you can call it that), so we experimented a bit with that too later in the year, Brushtober was the perfect excuse to try and find a shorthand for the character.
2021
It wasn’t until March that I realised that Mago needed a breather, between other life events and studying, his story was on hold for a while, so with that in mind we go on official hiatus until I’ve sharpened other essential art skills.
Kill your art baby!
2022
Two full years later from the last time we did a drawing of Mago, as I was practicing more of my painting rather than drawing I thought he deserved a little comeback, and with that we ended up settling on a few more character design decisions.
Earlier that year I had seen a video from Ethan Becker on YouTube about killing your art baby, which made me seriously consider again if I was just hanging too much to this character. So not only visually, but also in the writing I started to make him feel more grounded and balanced, giving him quirks and flaws, and some very real struggles, as well as making more decisions about how he approaches the world around him.
In this painting I was reconsidering some of the old design choices, like the two little spikes on the tail, those have been on and off through the years, worth noting this whole painting was based on the drawing from the Brushtober prompt, so the style didn’t quite match the storytelling yet, but we reworked the colour scheme, gave him his current green hair, and made many notes for future design changes.
At this stage I was also trying to build a portfolio in order to try and make money from art instead of working in an unrelated industry, so this was part of that effort.
2023
This was the year I ditched Photoshop as a software for Clipstudio Paint and also upgraded to a Wacom tablet.
Wanting to do professional work Clipstudio feels like a better long term choice, with more of a painter centric set of features, it also has a decent animation suite that I’ve been curious to try for a long time.
This was the year where we’re 95% of the way there in how Mago is represented, and most of it comes from the story. The adage “form follows function” couldn’t hold more truth.
As I built the world around, all of these little choices make more and more sense, from his worn clothes and his tattered shoes, to his very pristine universal size mage’s coat. Even the scuffed legs or the kindness of his eyes are part of his story, and thus part of his image.
Also at this point our fiery companion had already settled very nicely into being named Ash, and great relief for me, as I think that feels right.
2024
This year has been pure indulgence, it started with practicing my landscapes, and then finishing 5 seconds of animation featuring Mago (this had been in the works since the end of the previous year), and then a couple of style studies from both the original Dragonball anime and a lot of Studio Ghibli, as well as diving into traditional paintings, oh and also sculpting!
Once I found who the character is I’ve been revelling in all of these different processes.
What’s next?
Isn’t that an exciting question? This year I’m going to settle on the final style that will populate the illustration of the stories. I’m sure the final version will live somewhere in the intersection of all of those experiences from the last few years. The question is, would you like to come with me on this adventure?
To you, from the home of magic.
Marco D Blanco.
Wow I love to see the illustration journey of an artist! Excited to learn more about his story!!
Very interesting story, so far… Great illustration style. Impressive 👍