Tilde 30.6 Project - Illuminated Letters

Below is the log I kept for the Tilde 30.6 month long project I participated in for September, 2026

moendopi’s tilde30.6 project update #1

So far, I have been working towards completing all the letters in the alphabet. (Photos will be on my https page soon)

I sort of ‘cheated’ in having gotten started before this whole thing started having completed A-G before September 1.

Since September 1st, I have done two’s, one that looks like it is on a sheet of old paper, with some medieval-ish looking vines and leaves, plus a butterfly I more or less free handed. The interesting part here was figuring out how to make the paper look old. Thinned down gouache yellow ochre.

Most of my letter start with an underdrawing (now) using Higgin’s Drawing Ink Russet. It’s a dye based ink, not super water proof, but not hydrophobic or strongly tinted. It can disappear under the painting (depending on the color of the gouache - some colors aren’t as opaque as others). I’ve found it makes the most sense to use the Russet under a warmer painting (yellows, reds). I have a Blue one as well, which works better for darker colors, and obviously anything in the blue and purple range.

I did J again, trying a new experiment with a different example of the J. First I wanted to test how well, or not well, Army Painter hobby acrylics work for this. And, as I suspected, they work great. They aren’t nearly as vibrant as the gouache, but the are definitely more opaque. And more predictable. And kind of less variable, thus a little more boring.

For the acrylic vs gouache, I used a yellow base with an ultramarine blue accent, using white as highlights. In this experiment I found that while the acrylics are definitely more predictable and opaque, they just don’t pop as well. Part of that is just down to the pigment from army Painter. Vallejo would be similar but potentially more vibrant. My gouache is definitely brighter, but it definitely does take more skill and planning to make it come out right.

Next we the K, which I let the wife choose colors on. This K is neat because the example I chose to imitate has thorny vines growing out of and through the letter. The wife chose rose for the base, peach red (which is really a bright pink) as the accent, and I did highlights with titanium white, and the outline in lilac. For the vines I started with a cool deep green, bringing up the upper parts with sap green, and mixed in some tit white for highlights. I think it turned out well. I fun little touch I added was the spots where vines grow through the letter is a hole, but in mine I made them blue and orange. (yes, like Portal)

L came next and for this one I get to play around with blending and using a new violet from Holbein. Mmmm, it’s a nice color. I used Scarlet on the top and blended it down to the violet, meeting them in the middle, and lightening the top with some white. There was a fair amount of unevenness in the top especially where I tried to smooth out the added white, but the center decorations cover some of the ‘mistakes’ up. It’s got green pointy holly like leaves growing out of the corners. I like how the titanium white can become a chalky, opaque mix. I’ve gotten better at using my brush like a pen to add lines, highlights, accents, decorations, etc. I also used the new Aqua Blue from Holbien for the outside swirly bits. I really enjoy the lower half where the scarlet meets the violet. It’s a wonderful color and transition.

M is the next letter, and the first example is a cacophony of insanity with vines and pots and dots and all kind of stuff; vines growing through the letter, flower pots, roses, spiders and their webs. I’ll come back to that one later. I chose instead to do the big rounded M. The example showed a little beach cottage with some hills and bushes, a beach, and a tree. I liked this one. It has little flower bundles on the top corners and the bottom middle. This gave me a chance to finally try out the new Marigold color from Holbein. I had already planned on M being a marigold yellow, so this worked well. I outlined it with a thick crimson, and made an inner outline with orange made from the crimson and marigold. The marigolds themselves are a mix of marigold, crimson, and the two together. The yellow of the M itself is primary yellow from Windsor & Newton. The rest of my colors are Arteza.

And lastly, up to now is N. I’ve done two N’s of different types. One is a Uncial type N which has a lot of decorations, with the main color in Scarlet and Prussian blue as an accent color. Decorations are done in tit white. This one feels like a Norwegian or Icelandic flag thanks to the colors scheme.

The second it was less complex but color wise more interesting. It’s more a standard N shape, but decorated with leaves. I decided to go with a fall theme. The various leaves were drawn in, which is helping my not that great drawing skills, working with more deliberate curves. I used a mix of colors here, from natural tones like burnt sienna, burnt umber, and yellow ochre, to primary yellow, vermilion, and marigold. I had considered setting this on a dusk scene, deep blue into purple, but ditched that. I then considered setting it on top of a background of fall leaves, partially turned, but for the sake of simplicity and clarity, didn’t. Things to think about.

Next up is an O, with a sun, moon, diurnal cycle, and two faces. Hoo boy. Faces are not my strong suit. I’ve only ever really done skin tones on miniatures (which I’ve gotten better at using Army Painter’s skin tones). but here, it’s gonna be interesting.

Until next time.

Update #2 for tilde30.6 2026-09-16

Well, things are going more or less as planned. I start the letter S today, having finished an R last night. It had a crazy face in it and I am not good with drawing faces still. That almost makes it funnier.

It seems weird I only completed O, P, Q, & R. But then, these things take time. And I don’t have quite the open and free time I wish I had all the time. Work, other hobbies like D&D or trying to be half way decent at Magic (Standard), house stuff, work, trying to also keep up with my newest play through of Divinity: Original Sin 2.

I wish my local shop played Sorcery. Or well, I wish the shop near my that does played on a day that wasn’t Wednesday. Ah well.

There is only so much time in the day and I can’t really control motivation. It’s a big reason why I’d never take a job that relied on my own creativity. I mean, youtube is a different beast now, but even in 2018 when I first got into drone stuff I realized quickly that that wasn’t going to be a thing. I couldn’t sustain it. And I am not going to be a slave to my own creativity.

Anyway, I don’t know if anyone is readying these, but this wasn’t really an update. Today I start the S and I will have 7 to go after that. We’ll see if I can make ‘Goosey Goosey Gander’ with the level of detail in the letters or not. I might simplify them, or maybe I’ll just improvise.

Till next time.

Update #3 2026-09-21

Well, it’s next time. I’ve completed letters S, T, U, & W.

S is neat. Very Swedish color-wise. I added snails and butterflies. Generally I’m not that great at drawing things that look like things. But it turned out okay.

T turned out pretty good. It’s a wizard’s star, but no Pegasus. Leaves on the tips, violet fill with yellow stars.

U got two. One I kept unpainted, though I did plan on using watercolor for it. I’ll likely come back and make a second attempt at it. I didn’t paint it because I drew it and then did the line work with black India ink and a #108102 nib. The 108102 has a fair amount of flex, but it can make some really nice lines. I tried doing more deliberate long lines instead of sketchy lines. This has a man’s face on one side and a woman’s on the other. The woman is making a little smirk, in the center is a dotted heart with a floating question mark. It’s neat.

I did the second use as almost an inverse of the S. Aqua blue (more or less a sky blue) base with lemon yellow for the filler shapes. The yellow shapes are outlined in watercolor mauve for a nice contrast. The center got a background of emerald to accent the bright green leaves.

V was kind of simple. It’s all earth tones in water color. Indian Yellow, Indian red, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, raw umber. And some sap green. I like it. It’s simple. Indian red is a nice red oxide color that I quite enjoy.

W was a slight challenge to draw. Sure, it’s just two U’s. Okay. It’s a little trickier than that. Anyway, it turned out well. It’s got vines growing through it coming from what looks like a bee hive. Why? No idea. It got a deep lilac base with an outline in lemon yellow. The yellow needed some titanium white to make it more opaque. The vines are pale green, which is basically a lighter sap green that has less of a brownish shade, outlined with deep green. The insides were outlined with white. The white seems to make some of the inconsistencies of coverage/unevenness less obvious. Maybe it’s the contrast. Maybe it’s the way it draws the eye away. Maybe it’s because it fills in the space. I dunno.

So, one of my favorite games in the last 5-10 years is Pentiment. I really connected with it, both from the story, the period, the ideology. I quite enjoyed the scriptorium. 2-3 years later it was still knocking around my head and has kind of ‘inspired’ me to be doing this. I put inspired in quote because I’ve messed with calligraphy and this kind of thing before. But I’ve paid a lot more attention since Pentiment to things like calligraphy, medieval art, etc.

Well, that’s that for now.

Update #4 2026-09-27

I’ve finished my letters. I did the whole alphabet from A-Z (and a couple of duplicates in between).

Overall I think I have improved my ability to draw, freehand, though I am still basically copying from sight. I didn’t trace, just freehand mimicked what I was looking at. I’ve gotten a better feel for using dip pens for drawing and how the different nibs behave and respond to pressure. I’ve gained a much better grasp at how the different inks I own behave on the paper and respond to the nib.

I’ve also gotten better at using gouache and watercolor. I’ve never been great at drawing, but this have ‘unlocked’ some skills, or at least improved them. I’ve long enjoyed watercolor and gouache and this project was a good way to apply it and hone my skills.

Something I found was that very near the end I started up Pentiment again, a game which somewhat inspired this whole thing: the idea of illuminated manuscripts/letters, medieval drawing, calligraphy, book binding. One thing I noticed is that having not played it in a long time looking at some of the marginalia I saw some very familiar shapes in things like leaves and swirls that I was doing in following the book I was using: Illuminated Letters (sketchbook). That’s pretty neat. I also bought a book from Thrift Books, Early Medieval Book Illumination, which I plan to read up on more. I also got another book, Decorative Alphabets and Initials which I will be practicing and employing in the future.

Another interesting this is I picked up a book by Karen Maitland, Company of Liars, and the cover has an interestingly illuminated L in Liars. Each chapter’s first letter is a decoratively drawn letter, minus the illumination. I will be stealing those for later.

I didn’t get to the Goosey Goosey Gander as these letter took a lot longer than I originally anticipated them to take. A lot of work goes into making each one of these letters. I will probably be doing that in the near future.

For anyone that ends up reading this, if anyone ever does or can, I have made a page on my tilde page for this project. It’s just the letters, but more background: tilde.town/~moendopi/projects/letters/illuminated-letters/html

Have a look.

Cheers!