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Katagina
A hand-drawn illustration series exploring texture and motion.
Illustration, Concept Art
Katagina began as a personal sketchbook experiment and grew into a full illustration series exploring how line weight and texture can suggest movement without animation. The initial idea came from watching how pencil marks blur and smudge under motion, and wondering whether that same feeling could be captured deliberately rather than accidentally. What started as a handful of studies eventually became a cohesive body of work with its own visual rules.
Each piece was drawn traditionally first, then refined digitally to preserve the imperfections of the original pencil strokes rather than smoothing them away. This back-and-forth between analog and digital tools became central to the process — scanning, adjusting contrast, then redrawing sections by hand again when something felt too clean. The goal throughout was to keep the work feeling handmade, even in its final digital form.
The series plays with negative space, letting unfinished lines and rough edges become part of the final composition rather than flaws to correct. Several pieces were left intentionally incomplete at the edges, forcing the viewer's eye to fill in the rest of the figure. This approach took some convincing for early viewers used to more polished illustration work, but it became the defining trait of the series.
The full set has since been used across editorial features and limited-edition prints, and a few pieces have been reworked into larger formats for gallery display. The series continues to grow, with new studies added whenever a new idea about texture or motion comes up worth exploring. It remains one of the most personal projects in the portfolio, driven more by curiosity than by a client brief.
