Crafting the Mood: The Ritual of Preparation in Soft Pastel Art
In the world of manga illustration, every great character begins in the quiet of preparation. This often-overlooked phase is where the atmosphere is born, and for German art student and digital creator Lars Degenhardt, known widely as Laovaan, this stage is sacred. His process of using soft pastels to shape manga characters begins not with dramatic strokes or bold outlines, but with a slow, mindful setup that reflects his artistic discipline and intuitive grasp of mood.
At the heart of this phase is the act of securing the drawing surface with masking tape. While this might seem mundane to some, for Lars, it represents more than just practicality. This step grounds the artwork both physically and metaphorically. It symbolizes a shift from a blank surface filled with possibility to a controlled space of intention and imagination. By taping down the edges, Lars ensures the paper remains flat and unwrinkled, allowing the pastel to respond predictably to his touch. It also creates a clean, defined border, giving the final piece a polished look that frames the dreamy scenes he is about to create.
Once the surface is ready, the selection of colors begins. Lars chooses his initial palette with an eye not only for aesthetics but for atmosphere. Reddish violet, Purple 1, and Olive Ochre Light are the hues he reaches for first. These shades carry emotional resonance. The reddish violet introduces warmth tinged with mystery, while Purple 1 evokes introspection and surreal depth. Olive Ochre Light acts as a grounding contrast, offering an earthy touch that balances the ethereal tones. These aren’t random selectionsthey’re purposefully picked to suggest a world that is part dream, part memory, and wholly immersive.
This early stage is about more than just color application. It’s about setting a tone that resonates throughout the entire piece. The background becomes a silent character in an emotional cue, a space in which the manga figure will exist and evolve. For Lars, capturing this mood is an act of storytelling in its own right, and the materials, though simple, become the tools of a narrative infused with feeling and intention.
Painting with Powder: The Tactile Art of Pastel Blending
Once the palette is laid out and the surface prepared, the process shifts into one of texture and tactility. Working with soft pastels is unlike using pens or paints. Pastels have a velvety, almost fragile nature that demands sensitivity and patience. Lars approaches this phase with the care of a craftsman, gently brushing the pigments onto the paper in translucent layers. His goal is to let the pastels speak in their natural, powdery voice, rather than forcing them into rigidity.
Each stroke is subtle and considered. Lars layers the colors gradually, allowing them to softly overlap and interact without becoming muddy or overworked. He doesn't simply fill in space; he coaxes depth and nuance from the colors. There’s an almost meditative quality to the way he blends, guiding the eye across the page without abrupt transitions. The colors merge in a harmony that mimics the natural flow of fog, shadow, and light. These transitions are crucial in building an atmospheric background that doesn’t distract but complements the future subject.
To maintain this clarity and softness, Lars wears gloves while blending. This isn’t just a method of staying cleanthough that’s a bonusit’s about preserving the integrity of the medium. The natural oils from fingers can disrupt the pastel's surface, causing smudging that’s hard to control. By using gloves, Lars ensures that his touch remains precise and consistent. He even goes so far as to clean his gloves with a tissue during the process, preventing any unintended color transfer or buildup that could mar the work.
This methodical approach is what sets Lars apart. He understands that working with soft pastels is a dialogue between artist and medium. You can’t rush or dominate it. Instead, you have to listen through your eyes, your fingers, your intuition. Each gentle sweep of pastel across paper is a choice to enhance mood, deepen ambiance, and prepare the canvas for a character whose presence must feel at home in this misty world.
And it is in this phase that the background truly begins to glow. Lars adds white carefully and selectively to elevate the sense of light within the scene. This isn’t a bright, glaring light, but a diffused, subtle luminosity, like the soft gleam of dawn behind a veil of fog. The White enhances contrast, highlights key areas, and adds that spectral sheen that makes the whole image feel otherworldly. The effect is cinematicinviting the viewer to linger and feel, not just look.
Atmosphere as Architecture: Building Worlds with Intention
In the larger context of visual storytelling, atmosphere is often the invisible thread that ties everything together. For creators like Lars, who blend traditional and digital art practices with emotional storytelling, the background isn't filler. It’s a framework. It’s the stage upon which the character exists, and it sets the emotional tone long before the first expression or gesture is drawn.
What makes Lars's approach to soft pastel art particularly compelling is his ability to treat the intangible as something that can be constructed. Mood, aura, and tension are elements typically discussed in music or literature, but through his use of color and blending, Lars brings these concepts into visual form. Every aspect of his background creation is a reflection of this deeper understanding. The color palette whispers of forgotten dreams and quiet wonder. The gentle blending techniques mimic the way memories blur over time. The strategic addition of highlights invokes the presence of unseen light sources, as if the scene exists in its self-contained atmosphere.
By engineering this sense of place with care and precision, Lars doesn't just draw a setting breathes life into a visual space. Viewers are pulled into a moment that feels suspended in time, a prelude to something both intimate and epic. There’s a sense of anticipation in the stillness. The character hasn’t appeared yet, but already we feel their world soft, haunting, luminoustaking shape around them.
This is the essence of the artistic process that Lars champions. It’s about treating every stage as a narrative opportunity. From taping the paper to choosing the first pigment, from blending with gloves to amplifying light with white pastel, each step contributes to the storytelling. He proves that the atmosphere is not an accident. It is designed. It is cultivated. And when done with such devotion, it becomes the soul of the illustration.
As the background settles into its final form, it holds a quiet power. It doesn’t demand attention, yet it commands presence. It whispers, rather than shouts. It invites, rather than instructs. And in doing so, it sets the stage for the central figure of the manga comic who will soon step into this vivid dreamscape, already wrapped in the mood that Lars so delicately built.
Building the Soul of the Portrait: From Base Tone to Form
As the ethereal backdrop gently settles into place, the heart of the artwork begins to take shape: the face. It is here that the narrative truly awakens, where emotion is no longer suggested but felt, where character and personality start to emerge through precise layering and expressive tonal work. In this intimate part of the artistic process, the artist transitions from setting the mood to capturing the spirit, and it all begins with colour.
The initial step toward breathing life into the face involves the thoughtful application of a soft purple base. This first layer acts as a foundational skin beneath the skin and underpainting in the pastel medium that provides a consistent tone for what’s to come. Applied with gentle, sweeping gestures, the soft purple smooths out the paper’s texture, ensuring that the following layers blend evenly without rough edges or abrupt tonal shifts. It’s not merely a colour choice, but a tonal strategy, one that facilitates subtle gradations and controlled variation in later stages.
Once this velvety surface is laid down, white pastel enters the picture, not simply as a means to highlight but as a sculptor’s chisel, carving the planes of the face and giving form to light. This white is not used indiscriminately; it is precisely placed to evoke the natural architecture of the human face, the curve of a cheekbone, the tilt of a forehead, the delicate rise of a nose. Through careful blending, this stage elevates the flatness of the base into something dimensional, catching and diffusing light like real skin.
This balance between foundation and structure sets the tone for what follows. It provides the perfect canvas for more expressive, more emotionally resonant applications of colour. And that’s where the magic truly begins when the pigments begin to echo the subtleties of human complexion and emotion.
Infusing Human Warmth: The Power of Subtle Color Play
One of the most distinguishing features of this process is the introduction of shadow and warmth. Shadows are often misunderstood in portrait work, seen merely as darkened areas, but here, they are nuanced expressions of life. To achieve this, the artist moves beyond monochrome or grey shading and instead turns to a carefully selected palette that mirrors natural undertones.
The use of Carmine red, Vermillion, and Rose madder is a strategic and artistic decision. These hues don’t just mimic the colors found in makeup they mimic life itself. They echo the soft flush of blood beneath skin, the warmth of sun-kissed cheeks, the gentle gradient that occurs where skin bends and folds. Applied in delicate, almost invisible layers, these tones are feathered into the composition with an eye for realism, ensuring that each mark enhances rather than disrupts the softness already laid down.
What elevates this stage is the technique. The artist doesn’t merely add colour; he massages it into the grain of the paper, using soft tools like fingers and cotton buds. Cotton buds, in particular, allow for precision without the harshness that brushes or harder instruments might impose. With them, he can nestle pigment into the tiniest pores of the paper, achieving a depth that feels both tender and convincing. There’s a kind of sculptural sensibility in this step, a tactile interaction between pigment and paper that suggests both texture and form.
To build deeper shadows and accentuate the facial contours, Bordeaux is layered subtly over the previous tones. This isn’t a loud colour but a quiet amplifier. It deepens the existing hues without overtaking them, enriching the reds and adding complexity to the skin tone. The portrait starts to breathe more deeply at this point, he character gains emotional gravity, and the illusion of a living, feeling presence strengthens.
In this method, color becomes more than a visual stimulus; it becomes emotional language. Each hue whispers rather than shouts, contributing to a harmony that is perceptible but not always definable. The layering process is less about control and more about conversation. He artist responds to the surface, not dictates to it. There is trust in the process, in the way pigments evolve as they settle and dry, sometimes shifting subtly in hue or intensity. This openness to impermanence, to unpredictability, is what allows a portrait to feel human rather than constructed.
The careful avoidance of overly glossy or artificial finishes helps maintain the illusion of natural skin. There’s a fragility to this kind of realism; it’s easy to overdo, to fall into caricature, but here, the balance is finely struck. The result is skin that feels alive, not painted; shadow that feels like memory, not makeup. It’s a poetic rendering, where warmth is not just depicted but felt, where light and dark dance not in opposition but in unison. The work emerges not only as an image, but as an experience, quiet, intimate, and deeply human.
Capturing Expression: Eyes, Detail, and the Final Flourish
While the broader strokes build structure and volume, it’s in the details where the soul of the portrait finds its clearest voice. No feature demands more delicate attention than the eyes. They are the focal point of the viewer’s gaze, the window through which emotion is perceived. In this artwork, the eyes are handled with restraint and purpose, beginning with a soft interplay between White and Cold grey.
The whites of the eyes are not simply left white. Instead, they are infused with a whisper of coolness that prevents them from appearing flat or artificial. This touch of Cold grey introduces dimension and texture, allowing the sclera to reflect ambient light naturally, without becoming overly stark. It’s a lesson in understatement less is more when it comes to realism.
To define the lashes and add refinement to the eye’s contours, the artist uses a paper wiper dipped in Prussian blue pigment. This technique introduces a crispness that contrasts beautifully with the softness of the surrounding skin, drawing attention without breaking the harmony of the portrait. The blue adds a richness and grounding that black alone would lack, creating depth and suggestion rather than hard lines.
Beyond the eyes, the finer edge details are executed with coloured pencils. These tools are chosen not for their boldness but for their subtle ability to sharpen forms without disrupting the overall softness of the pastel work. A jawline, a brow, and a dimple all receive careful clarification, allowing the viewer to focus and appreciate the structure beneath the surface without feeling that any part has been overworked.
What’s remarkable about this stage is how it respects the integrity of the medium. Every detail is integrated, not imposed. The coloured pencils don’t sit on top of the pastel but work in harmony with it, enhancing rather than clashing. And the result is a portrait that doesn’t just resemble a person, it evokes them. You can feel their quiet thoughts, their silent expressions, and their inner world.
Throughout this entire process, from base coat to final touches, the work echoes the traditions of masterful portraiture, not just capturing likeness but conveying presence. Each hue plays a role in emotional storytelling, each shade adds depth not just to the surface but to the soul behind it.
Defining Personality Through Hair and Eyebrows: The Subtle Art of Character Creation
As an artwork nears its completion, the most subtle features often deliver the greatest emotional impact. Hair and eyebrows, though seemingly minor compared to eyes or mouth, carry an unmistakable power to express individuality. In the hands of a skilled artist like Lars, these components become essential instruments of storytelling. They communicate mood, hint at backstory, and enrich the visual narrative with gestures as subtle as a curve or color shift.
Lars begins this final phase of the character’s evolution with the eyebrows, an area that demands both precision and restraint. He chooses a Deep purple hue rich in emotional depth and visual weight. This choice is deliberate, echoing earlier tones used across the face, which helps maintain chromatic cohesion. Each stroke is laid with calculated control, never overworked. The use of a cotton bud to soften the edges creates a seamless blend into the surrounding skin tones. This blurring not only preserves harmony but also adds realism, mimicking the way natural eyebrows transition into the flesh without hard borders.
This technique of layering and softening parallels the method previously used in constructing the facial structure. It is this repetition of approachmore than just materialsthat lends the artwork a unified aesthetic language. Every stage builds on the one before, reinforcing the viewer’s sense of continuity, even as new elements are introduced.
The decision to extend the use of Deep Purple into the hairline is more than a compositional trick. It serves as a bridge between facial features and hair, ensuring that the transition doesn’t feel abrupt. This chromatic echo binds the character’s anatomy into a single, flowing form, eliminating any sense of separation between the parts. The overall effect is one of organic cohesion, a natural extension of the face into the hair that strengthens the illusion of life.
The Hair as a Canvas of Emotion and Movement
Hair in portraiture is more than a stylistic accessory; it becomes a canvas in its own rightone that captures light, motion, and personality. For Lars, this is an opportunity to transcend realism and enter a more imaginative realm. He fills the hair using a bold juxtaposition of Reddish violet and Greenish blue. These colors, while strikingly different, are applied in a way that feels both intentional and instinctive. Their interaction creates a dynamic tension that draws the eye, energizing the composition without overwhelming the other elements.
The Reddish violet conveys a sense of inner warmth and intensity, while the Greenish blue introduces coolness and calm. Together, they suggest a dual mind in motion, a personality layered with contrast. These pigments are not simply aesthetic choices but psychological tools, inviting viewers to infer emotional subtext from the colors alone. The hair becomes a vibrant expression of the character’s essence, capturing both temperament and imagination.
Yet Lars doesn’t stop at color alone. To accentuate the silhouette of the hair, he introduces fine Flat white lines at its outer edges. These are not stark outlines meant to contain or define. Instead, they act more like whispers of light, ethereal touches that subtly lift the character out of the background. The contrast they create is delicate yet effective, enhancing depth while preserving the dreamy, otherworldly tone that has defined the entire piece.
What’s most captivating here is the sense of movement suggested by the application of pastels. The layering of tones and the slight irregularities in stroke direction imply energy. The hair doesn’t just exist; it flows, shifts, and responds as though stirred by an unseen breeze. This impression of dynamism gives the character a lifelike presence that’s both immediate and immersive. The viewer is drawn not just to the figure’s appearance, but to their implied inner world.
This section of the artwork becomes a space where fantasy and naturalism freely intersect. Lars is no longer tethered strictly to anatomical realism; he allows his imagination to guide form and hue. This freedom infuses the work with spontaneity, the marks on paper becoming extensions of emotion rather than just representations of physical form. The character’s hair, through this process, transforms into a narrative device, all its visual metaphors for thoughts, dreams, and untold stories.
The Aura of Personality: Where Technique and Expression Converge
In this phase of creation, the portrait reaches its most expressive and personal territory. The attention to detail, the choice of pigment, and the layering techniques all serve a higher purpose: to breathe life into the character. Lars doesn’t merely depict a person; he evokes a presence. This is where the alchemy of soft pastels proves its unmatched potency.
The character’s aura is shaped not only by visible attributes but also by what is suggested through artistic nuance. The softened eyebrows hint at empathy, thoughtfulness, perhaps even introspection. The vibrant, unpredictable hair suggests originality, perhaps a rebellious streak, or a mind tuned to unseen frequencies. These aren’t overt traits but are felt intuitively, absorbed by the viewer in ways that are emotional rather than intellectual.
The use of color plays an indispensable role in this evocation of aura. Deep purple links mind and mystery, Reddish violet offers passion and complexity, and Greenish blue brings serenity with a hint of melancholy. When woven together with fine white highlights, these pigments transcend their material function to become tools of psychological depth. They help create a figure that feels emotionally real, as though capable of stepping beyond the canvas at any moment.
What distinguishes this stage from earlier ones is its freedom. With the structural groundwork already in place, Lars can now explore with confidence. The forms are secure; the colors are in harmony. This freedom results in choices that may appear spontaneous but are underpinned by technical mastery. Whether it’s the gentle diffusion of color into a shadow, the flick of white at the hair’s edge, or the fusion of cool and warm tones, each gesture is both expressive and deliberate.
And yet, despite all the techniques, it is the emotion that lingers. The portrait becomes more than a visual experience; it is a psychological encounter. We meet the character not through their posture or clothing, but through the invisible field of personality that has been so carefully constructed through strokes, color, and light.
In this way, the modest tools of soft pastels become vehicles of transformation. They blur, blend, and illuminate, allowing Lars to shift seamlessly between the literal and the lyrical. The figure he creates is not bound by realism, but is no less authentic. It is this careful fusion of real and imagined that makes the work so compelling. The character is not simply rendered; they are revealedlayer by layer, hue by hue.
Dressing the Character: Clothing as Narrative
As the creative process nears its final stages, Lars Degenhardt focuses his meticulous attention on a critical yet often underappreciated aspect of character rendering: the garment and accessories. Clothing, in Lars's approach, transcends mere fashion or period accuracy. It becomes a frame that holds the figure, a compositional balance point that anchors the character within the story's visual universe. Here, garments are not passive; they are expressive structures that enhance presence, hint at personality, and dialogue with their surroundings.
For Lars, clothing is more than a superficial addition; it is narrative architecture. Every fold, seam, and fabric weight carries a specific communicative intention. The way a sleeve drapes or a collar opens suggests inner statesvulnerability, control, mystery, defiance. The garments interact with the character's posture and gaze, suggesting tension or ease, ambition or resignation. The texture of the cloth, whether matte or lustrous, tightly woven or loosely stitched, speaks to social class, profession, mood, and even metaphysical states. Within this subtle interplay, Lars finds fertile ground to extend his storytelling beyond the literal, allowing surface to hint at psyche.
For this final flourish, Lars selects a palette that is intentionally grounded yet visually rich. A triadic harmony of greenish blue, ultramarine blue deep, and black is introduced for the attire. These hues are not chosen at randomthey serve as a tonal anchor against the dreamlike pink sky and the luminous, ethereal skin tones that dominate the earlier phases of the work. By choosing darker and cooler tones for the clothing, Lars crafts a calculated contrast that amplifies the surrealism of the character's environment. The character no longer floats in an abstract world of light and softness but becomes groundedreal within the unreal.
There is a paradox here, one that Lars embraces rather than avoids: the more grounded the clothing becomes, the more otherworldly the figure appears in juxtaposition. This tension between realism and abstraction, containment and drift, lies at the core of his aesthetic. Clothing is the mediator that does not simply dress the body; it orchestrates the viewer’s perception of that body’s function and meaning in the scene.
The outline of the jacket is defined by a precise white line. This line functions dually: it acts as a physical guide for the artist’s hand and as a visual separator for the viewer’s eye. It delineates the boundaries of the garment without overwhelming the image. It is this restraint, this ability to imply structure without hard edges, that gives Lars's work its characteristic depth. The line acts almost as a breath between layers, a whisper of boundary rather than a shout. It reminds the viewer that the garment exists both in the world of form and in the world of imagination.
This technique draws inspiration from the idea of contour as not merely a border but a suggestion of memory of shape rather than a rigid edge. In this, Lars aligns more with musical composition than visual delineation, allowing the line to function like a motif that recurs, shifts, and evolves, never static but always intentional. It guides the eye while refusing to dominate it.
Into this setting enters a carefully controlled use of vermilion. This bold, warm tone is subtly applied to accentuate contours, particularly around the garment, helping to visually connect the clothing with the facial tones. Rather than introducing a jarring element, vermilion harmonizes and guides the viewer’s attention, subtly unifying disparate parts of the composition. The use of vermilion is not arbitrary; it echoes historical uses of color to denote vitality, emotion, and spiritual presence. Here, it binds fabric to flesh in a seamless dialogue, blurring the boundaries between surface and self.
Vermillion also introduces a quiet rhythm into the composition. It is used not as decoration but as a punctuation accent that marks turning points in the visual narrative. Its warmth counters the coolness of the primary clothing palette, offering a delicate balance that evokes emotion without sentimentality. It becomes a bridge, linking the tactile with the ephemeral.
The cumulative effect of these choices is a figure that lives not only within the artwork but within the viewer’s imagination. Lars understands that clothing, when handled with this level of care and intentionality, can become a kind of psychic membranesomething that protects, reveals, constrains, and liberates all at once. It is not just what the character wears; it is who the character becomes through what is worn.
The narrative, then, does not end with the face or the stance. It continues through stitch and pigment, through silhouette and shade. In Lars’s hands, clothing is no longer a silent backdrop but a participant in the drama, a witness to the character's history, and a co-author of the story being told. His garments breathe, remember, and dreamand through them, so do we.
Layering Details: Hair, Texture, and Material Realism
At this point in the creation, Lars revisits an essential feature: the hair. Although the character's hair had already undergone earlier development, it now receives its final treatment. Purple 1 is reintroduced into the strands using a combination of line work and smudging techniques. This cyclical layeringrepetition with variationis what brings the form to life. Each pass of pastel builds upon the last, sharpening the structural form while preserving the softness so integral to pastel work.
One of the more innovative techniques Lars employs during this phase is the use of white pastel in a crosshatching method to add texture to the jacket. Crosshatching, typically a technique associated with ink or graphite, is rarely attempted with the soft and smudge-prone nature of pastels. Yet, in Lars’s hands, it becomes a tool for emulating woven fabric. Once these strokes are blended delicately, a subtle weave-like pattern emerges, suggesting the tactile sensation of cloth. It’s not a photorealistic texture, but it doesn’t need to be. It suggests materiality, and in doing so, invites the viewer to engage with the character not just visually, but imaginatively.
Black pastel is then introduced once more, this time to deepen shadows and provide weight to the jacket. These shadows are not arbitrarily placed. They correspond with an implied light source established earlier in the painting, thereby maintaining internal consistency. This careful modulation of shadow enhances the dimensionality of the garment, allowing the figure to occupy a believable space.
Perhaps the most understated yet symbolically potent detail is the pendant. Hanging subtly around the character’s neck, it carries a quiet gravitas. Its rendering is deceptively simple but rich in nuance. Lars uses a combination of cold grey, black, and white to simulate the reflective qualities of metal. Metal, as a subject, demands more than just shine; it requires an understanding of how light bends, bounces, and is absorbed by curved surfaces. With a few deliberate touches, Lars captures its form, weight, and material essence. The pendant becomes more than an accessory is a focal point of intimacy, a clue to the character’s inner life, perhaps a relic or a keepsake, and certainly a finishing touch that adds depth to the visual story.
The Final Touch: Preservation, Permanence, and Artistic Closure
With all visual elements in place, Lars turns his attention to preservation crucial step often glossed over by less experienced pastel artists. Soft pastels, for all their vibrancy and blendability, are notoriously delicate. Even the most refined stroke can be erased with a careless touch. To guard against this, Lars employs a fixative spray designed specifically for pastel works.
Before spraying, he shakes the can vigorously, ensuring even dispersion of the fixative. He then applies it in a slow, sweeping motion from left to right and top to bottom. The can is held at a consistent distance of about 40 centimeters from the surface. This careful, almost ritualistic application prevents blotching and ensures that the delicate pastel particles remain undisturbed. There’s an unspoken reverence in this process quiet recognition of the work’s fragility and the need to protect what has been so carefully built.
As the final layer of fixative settles and dries, the painting solidifies just physically, but conceptually. Every phase of creation, from the first washes of pink sky to the detailing of metallic accessories, comes together in a harmonious whole. The character, once a ghostly collection of forms and colors, now feels embodied. It has presence. It has a narrative.
In Lars Degenhardt’s methodology, there is an unspoken dialogue between spontaneity and control, between expression and technique. His use of pastel often dismissed as a medium of fleeting gestures becomes a conduit for permanence. He demonstrates that with vision, patience, and deep respect for materials, soft pastels can transcend their ephemeral nature.
This approach serves not only as a technical guide for artists seeking mastery in pastels but also as a philosophical reminder: great art does not merely depict, it evokes. It invites the viewer into an intimate space where form meets feeling, and where every detail be it a jacket’s texture, a glint of metal, or a smudge of violet contributes to a larger emotional truth.
By the end of this journey, Lars doesn’t just finish a painting; he completes a story. One told in strokes and shades, in choices and refinements. The final flourish is not merely about adding polish, but about bringing the work full circle connecting the early visionary impulse to the completed visual reality. In doing so, he leaves behind more than an image; he leaves behind a testimony to the enduring power of craft, imagination, and the delicate, permanent magic of pastels.
