It's all about Process, Process, Process!

Here is another example of my process. This particular job had some interesting added bonuses that I had to take into account. One interesting thing was that this piece had to be able to be taken apart and re-arranged to fit multiple hardgoods. Another interesting thing was that characters needed to be seperated as to be used on other items. So with out further ado. Let me explain this process.



I always start out with a sketch. In this case I submitted three sketches, all very similar. This was the winner. There are various colors used in this sketch because when I was drawing it I was working out problems via tracing paper. I had the characters on one piece of tracing paper, the buildings on another and the sign on another. I was moving them around to figure out the right spots for maximum character exposure. So I marked the spots and scanned the different tracing papers in the computer got them in photoshop and proceeded to move them around some more and resize and all the other fun stuff. When the sketch was approved. I moved onto phase two.




Phase two was to draw all the individual parts of the illustration. These are tight line drawings. In this case it was the background only. I later took this sketch into Illustrator and broke down the buildings into individual parts. I put each building in its own layer. A little tedious at first but well worth it later when the client ask to move things around a little.




I drew the characters seperate as well. Making sure that the pose was okay and the character was correct. I scanned him in and inked him in Illustrator. I copied and past into a master document that has the background buildings and the Vegas sign and the other characters.




This is another sample of a tight line drawing before I scan it into the computer and ink up in Illustrator. I do a tight line drawing to take the guess-work out when I am inking in the computer. The less guess-work the faster I can ink.

After I get all the different inked pieces together in the same Illustrator document. I make sure that all the pieces are on there own layers ans situated right. I will make any adjustments neccessary for positions and I apply color and start to render.




This is the final. It was for a towel. The characters and the sign where on other items. This is a little more typical of how my process goes. I always have to think that no matter what this piece is going on it will need to be adapted to anything else. So it is crucial that I seperate the elements. A side note: When I ink, I set the document up that there is a scan layer, dead-line layer, stroked-line layer, and expanded layer. So if the element needs to be changed in some fashion, such as thicker line weight or an arm moved slightly it can be done quicker.