Meet Ravi, Founder of Studio Altbau.
I am an illustrator and creative entrepreneur based in Utrecht. Originally from South Africa, I have been living in the Netherlands for 6 years.
ALTBAU is a project several years in the making. The name is inspired by my love for architecture and history. The name comes from German, a sister word to the Dutch Oudbouw.
Next to my creative work I love the outdoors, travelling, learning languages, and public storytelling.
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The creation process
Every house portrait begins with a high-resolution photo of the facade. I extract exact measurements and convert them into the skeleton of the drawing, using precision equipment to ensure every vertical and horizontal line are perfectly level. In pencil, I lay out the basic features first: windows, doors, balconies, roofling. Then I map the smaller details inside them: wooden paneling, tiles, bricks, cornerstones, colonnades.
Once the pencil layer is complete, I ink over it with a 0.15mm fineliner, often working on details only a few millimeters wide. With the linework finished, I move to watercolor, using a miniature brush to paint each brick individually by hand. In the final pass, I add shadow, adjust light and texture, and check the piece against the reference, making sure nothing has been overlooked.
Average completion time (A4 size): 15 to 20 hours.