Book Review: The Art of Heikala: Works and thoughts

Heikala is an illustrator based in Finland who works mostly with inks and watercolour.

When I first looked at the book, I found it weird that there wasn't any text on the back cover. After going through the book, I found out this book was actually made possible from a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2018 launched by 3dtotal Publishing.

Not sure why a Kickstarter campaign is needed. Probably to drum up more exposure. Anyway, the book probably would have sold well since there are more than one million followers on Heikala's Instagram page.d

This book collects the beautifully hand painted illustrations from recent years. Heikala has a style that's a blend of anime art and children book illustration. Her artworks are not just pretty to look at but there's also storytelling element behind. In this book, she shares her creative process, how she comes up with ideas and how she paints. There are three detailed step-by-step tutorials included, one for watercolour, the other for inks, and the last one on creating a enamel pin.

She has a masterful way of using colours. Her colour palette is really nice and complements her ink lines well. There are also a few sketchbook pages included.

This book provides a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at how Heikala creates her work. There's a lot of insight from the text as well. So this is a delightful visual and insightful treat, and one of few books from the 3dtotal illustrator series of artbooks.

The Art of Heikala: Works and thoughts (3dtotal Illustrator Series) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | AU | JP | CN)

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