June 2015 Challenge Entry: Lontar Saraswati

[Shall Teclex]

I hadn't posted anything on the Guild's forum for some time, but couple of days ago I saw the theme of this month's challenge and I have an idea: palm leaf manuscript.

Dried and cut palm leafs had been common material for writing (and drawing) in Eastern and Southeastern Asia (basically, anywhere where palms grow) for millenia before the print was introduced. Here are some examples of palm leaf manuscripts:





I did some basic research on the subject yesterday, and I would like to focus specifically on lontar - palm leaf manuscripts from Balinese culture:



To make this post shorter, I won't explain how lontars are made, but here is a nice article about that: http://www.wonderfulbali.com/lontar-bali/

In this moment I'm working on my palm leaf canvas and I will post the WIP picture as soon as I get it right...

[Larb]

That article was very interesting. I'd never heard of lontars before.

[Shall Teclex]

After several days of fast & furious painting, my palm leaf map looks (almost)

finished :-)

As I said before, my choice for canvas was palm leaf, so I looked up for

inspiration for my map to the lands beyond the seven seas... and in that

search, I have discovered the vivid and fantastic culture of Bali. Since

religion plays important part in the Balinese culture, I decided to draw a map

of an imaginary temple of Saraswati, the Hinduistic goddess of knowledge, arts,

and creativity, who is one of the major deities in the Balinese cult.

The palm leaf (lontar) is completely painted in PS CS3. The line art is

Illustrator CS3.

Hope you like it!

### Latest WIP ###

[Francissimo]

Really cool and original work! my only small critic would be about the font (the classic one), they are readable but maybe another one could fit better with the overhaul atmosphere of the map?

[J.Edward]

That is really cool Teclex.
I agree with Francissimo about the text.
It looks good but the font [the non Bali font] for the main text seems out of place with the rest of it.
Maybe a hand written font might look more appropriate.
You did a great job on the perspective.

[Shall Teclex]

Thank you Francissimo and J.Edward for constructive and fast suggestion. I was obsessing about other details so much that I failed to notice that I had used a typical printing font (Garamond) on a picture of an ancient manuscript ... Anyway, that is solved now, here comes another (and, hopefuly, better) version of the map. Thanks again!

### Winner ###

[J.Edward]

That looks good.

[Abu Lafia]

Hi Shall Teclex, really cool idea, and an impressive execution! The texture looks fantastic and i can't find appropriate words for the temple...too good! Btw., i agree, the new font is much better. Keep up the great work!