Samples from my Current Book in Process

(CLICK ont he images below to get larger views) I finally have some proof that I have been busy working on a new book over the past six months! Below I'm posting a bunch of images taken from some of the process of the new book. This book will be published by Wind RIdge Publishing in Vermont as soon as the illustrations are done. First up is the Character turn-around of the head for one of the main characters in the book.
Below is a character lineup of all of the characters in the color sample stage where I got a feel for how the faces would be painted and the colors of their clothing.

Below is one of the spot illustrations from the book. Not 100% done yet but close.

Below are a couple of the earlier illustrations in the book, also not 100% done yet. The faces in these are just rough lay in and will be fixed later.

Below is a close up of the dog character (Jake) as he sticks his head out the window and gets a good look at the car wheels.

Below is some of the process work for one of the illustrations. I've got some character sketches, background sketch, and one of the color samples for the scene.

Long Book Reading Video

I am finally getting around to posting this full length video of the book reading with illustrations and a bit of animation and noises mixed in. Enjoy!

What's in a grey? : Making Concrete Observations

Wow! Has it really been so long since my last Post? Sorry, I've been doing a ton of work with my current children's book and still marketing my previous book. I finished off the longer video for that book a while back but never had a chance to uplaod it to this blog.
I've had a ton of ideas for topics I want to blog about but they are all quit time consuming ideas to put together. For today I decided to lay out my observations on the color grey as seen in the natural outdoors and as effected by light and shade. A friend of mine used to use black and white directly from the tube to make his greys for roads, concrete, metalic objects etc. He would often even make large areas of color in one uniform tone and hue across an area of space in his images. I'm not saying that is necisarily a bad thing as he did get many comments of approval of his art. However in my own observations I've noticed that this sort of application of color is often not true to nature. In the real world colors and surfaces get lighter as they recede in space and they tend to get cooler as they recede. Shadows will also be cooler than areas hit by light. You can get a good representation and create the appropriate value and contrast to form objects in an image just by using a monochromatic color scheme and even just with black and white. However I have found that my children's book illustrations are enhanced by exagerating colors.

Below are a few photos with concrete, sidewalks, pavement, roads etc which are generally thought in the mind to be just plain grey. In the center of the images I have extracted bits of the "greys" from the surrounding image to make it easier for us to see exactly what colors are in those greys. Things that would effect the colors are the time of day, the amount of light, the source of light, nearby objects which bounce color into the shadows etc.

Below is one example of one of my color samples of an illustration I will be painting soon. I did a number of samples for this and a couple just went with various values of grey worked from black and white. That may have worked fine for some applications but both the author and I agree that it just won't do for our children's book as this image would seem too dull in relation to the other images in the book. The sample below has a grey interior to a car which I have infused colors into and yet still read as grey in the overall picture. You can get these kinds fo greys by mixing complementary colors together and adding white. I wanted the areas nearest the sources of light (windows) to be warmer and the darker and deeper nooks and cranies take on more of a purple hue.
The image below is another image I'm working on for the same book as the above image. I do still have a lot I want to work on for these grey areas but I think this image will still work to get my point across. To the right you can see some areas I cropped out of the image and then crystalized in photoshop to help see the colors in the greys. In the concrete oning above the doorway, my goal was to have the area be dark enough to suggest not much sunlight is getting under there, and yet I also wanted to have some reflected light from the building effecting the color of the concrete. Then just to tie things in a bit better i decided to take some of the purple from below and work it into the top of the image. The concrete walkway admitedly overdoes the purple and I do plan to desaturate that. I don't want it to compete with the girls sweater and it is also currently popping off the canvas.
This last image comes from my previous book. I did about five or six color smaples of this image having bluer tones and greener tones in the concrete. In order to tie the whole image together, the author and I decided on the below color scheme. The color scheme in this image is quit warm with mere accents of cool color making the warms dance. I treated this concrete almost the way you would treat a water scene in which the sky colors are reflected onto the water top. A grey made with black and white would probably look great but I feel the colors I used below have more to say about the mood and atmosphere I was trying to achieve than black would be able to accomplish.

It's been a while since my last post because I've been extremely busy with a new booka nd doing lots of marketing work for my previous published book. I worked for a while on the book website and I'm currently working on the book reading video. This is a short sample of that and I hope to have the full version finished soon.Enjoy!

My Favorite Illustrators and Painters

Yet another blog post I’ve wanted to put in writing for some time now but haven’t been able to find time. Below is a list of websites for some of the artists who have inspired me and kept me moving forward in my career. If I hadn’t found these artists, I’m sure I would have made precious little improvement with my art over the past few years since graduating from Mass Art. Below is a vast array of artists from highly textured oil portrait painters, to highly imaginative fantasy art, fantastic children’s book illustrations and a few breathtaking landscape painters. All of these styles have pushed me and prodded as I struggle to discover my own voice in the world of art and push forward with some sort of unique style. I wrote a bit about the first few and ultimately had to resort to just listing websites for the rest. I wanted to include some images of some of there work but I don’t have time to send requests to each artist or even just to collect the images and upload them. I hope you’ll journey over yourselves and feel free to let me know of some of your favorites in the comments. Enjoy!

One of my recent favorite illustrators would have to be Richard Watson. his website http://www.richardjessewatson.com/ The website doesn't do his work justice since he uses lots of texture which is more evident in the books than on the website.

An illustrator I found about four years ago is James Gurney. He is probably my biggest inspiration since graduating from massart. I think I first saw his work displayed at some illustrators guild museum or something. He is the illustrator and author of a series known as Dinotopia which was made into movies and I think cartoons as well. He spent a lot of time working on site with national Geographic’s doing illustrations for them. He also does tons of prep work and makes sculptures of his characters before starting a painting. I wish I could put as much time into my work as he does and I wish I had all of the ala prima painting experience behind me that he has. Take a look at his painting gallery. I unfortunately have to work mostly from photo references for now but he uses lots of live references, gets live models, paints landscapes from life, on and on. When painting dinosaurs he uses real life animals with similar textures as reference. For example he’ll look to elephant skin and crocodiles to get the textures for dino skin. His use of color, compositions, attention to detail, original ideas/concepts, ability to merge the imagination with the real world are just outstanding. He shows me what true passion mixed with illustration can be. When talking about the Dinotopia series he mentions that he loves the concept because he gets to bring dinosaurs back to life and put them beside humans. He sees it as painting history more so than fantasy or sci-fi. As a kid he was always fascinated by dinos because he knew they were once alive not like unicorns, dragons, trolls, and vampires. His website. . . http://www.jamesgurney.com/index.html

Ok, you may not have heard of the others so far but I know you’ve heard of Norman Rockwell. He is definitely one of my favorites. I grew up with his work all around me because my grandfather has a huge collection of his. He actually has so many prints and mugs, and plates and calendars and other objects with Rockwell paintings that he could open his own museum. I have a few norman Rockwell collectors books that I look through every now and then for inspiration. I also went to the Norman Rockwell museum a couple years ago. His figures are some of the best I’ve come across, he paints some of the best facial expressions I’ve come across, he paints hands better than I could ever dream of doing, his themes are touching, timeless and meaningful, everything in the painting belongs there and helps tell the story, he tells stories better than most illustrators. There are many website but this seems to be the main one http://www.normanrockwell.com/index.php .

One of my favorites for book design and layout is David Wiesner. He is also amazing for his ability to tell the entire story without words. You’ve probably come across his book called “Tuesday”. It’s all illustrations. Granted the story is nothing spectacular but it’s fun for the kids and adults. He’s also got a knack for point of view perspective where he can take you from the top of a clock tower looking down on the town in one image and bring you down into a swamp with the turtles in another image. For part of his process he talks about how he gets his ideas. He makes and interesting image then asks the question what happened before and after that particular scene. He can then build an entire book around it. http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/wiesner/home.html

Another great story teller through illustrations is Chris Van Allsburg. He’s the only illustrator I know of who made an entire children’s book out of graphite drawings, no color. He works with so little and yet he gives the reader so much. My favorite images of is are those with glowing aspects. You may have seen his image with the woman cutting a glowing pumpkin with a knife. I mostly know him for his book “ The Mysteries of Harris Burdick” http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/flash.html

One of my favorite painters is Scott Burdick. He is one of the ones who helped me to love texture in painting (although my clients tend to hate texture so I do very little with it for now). He’s also great with light and shadow on forms. His website is amazing. His wife, susan Lyon, is also really good and is also featured on this site. Be sure to click on some of the images for close-ups. I love that they show there work back years ago so you can see how they progressed.
Another somewhat recent favorite is holly hobbie the author and writer of the toot and puddle series. She has amazing layout skills, Great range of medium in each book. Unique painting technique and great color harmony. She has cute and simple characters with terrific stories to back them up. http://www.scottburdick.com/

Some other great ones who I don’t have time to write about and may be worth your time to have a look at.
William Scott Jennings http://www.wsjennings.com/jennings/home.phtml
Charles Kerins http://www.charleskerins.com/
David Renn http://www.davidrenn.com.au/index.html

http://www.jcleyendecker.blogspot.com/
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/glenda/bierstadt/bierstadt3.html
http://www.richardschmid.com/2000_page.htm
http://www.christensenstudio.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=15825&Akey=TVKNT9F5
http://turtleart.net/artists.php
http://www.davidrenn.com/
http://www.manchess.com/
http://www.jbmonge.com/Feerie1JB.php
http://www.jenniferemery.com/
http://www.jodylee.org/Version2/Gallery/Paintings/GraniteShield.html
http://www.johnclapp.com/artw_pages/bookart_pages/bookart_main.html
http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=66
http://www.laynejohnson.com/kitten.htm
http://www.deborahsecor.com/landscapes.html
http://www.ripsqueak.com/rips-first-flight-p-322.html
http://www.paulaford.com/
http://www.pino-artist.com/pino-art-collections.html
http://www.terryshoffner.com/index.html
http://www.dandossantos.com/mock.html
http://www.paulmurray.com/index.html
http://phyllishornungpeacock.com/index.htm
http://www.dvpalumbo.com/index.html
http://www.mortkunstler.com/
http://www.trisharomance.com/home.html
http://www.diterlizzi.com/
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=galleries&start=g
http://www.graemebase.com/Home.cfm
http://www.walterwick.com/index.htm
http://www.drewstruzan.com/
http://www.morganweistling.com/
http://www.timbowers.com/
http://www.vareikafinearts.com/showexhibit.asp?ID=1

My New Book is Available!

A few weeks ago I wrote about my book which was scheduled to come out before Christmas but I forgot to write again wehn it actually became available. You can now buy the book on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Caterpillar-Express-Train-Jeremy-Foster-Fell/dp/0984347704/

or to get it signed or to purchase a whistle with the book you can go to my website http://www.matthewgauvin.com/ or the book website http://thecaterpillarandtheexpresstrain.webs.com/

Thanks!

Reference for Cars

Today I find myself looking through tons of photos of cars trying to find the perfect match for my new book. After some time searching I discovered some great websites that actually sell cheap die cast models of cars. I know this tid bit of info will be extremely helpful later down the road with other projects and with this one. Typically I will be forced to work from photos for most everything I illustrate. Often for more complex objects and characters I have to make models in order to see how the light falls across forms. However I knew there would be no easy way to create my own model of a car from scratch so buying a diecast model should be the perfect solution. Mainly I want to share a couple of links for that as I'm sure others will eventually be faced with a simialr problem.

Secondly I didscovered some amazing diecast models of much older cars like this fire truck which would be a lot harder to go see in person. Buying a diecast could be the solution to doing historical paintings of rare cars. I could even see these older model cars being a great starting point or inspiration for creating futuristic car designs. The older cars have way more class and style than all the new stuff they are coming out with. One link to cheap die cast cars is http://www.diecastmodelswholesale.com/servlet/the-Fire-Engine-Diecast/Categories

there are plenty of websites I found that sell these sorts of things but this is one of the best I found so far. Secondly I found a great website with links to paper models of objects including things like cars, buildings, insects etc. One of the cooler ones I found was this hornet model. You can go on there and download the whole thing, cut it out and glue it together. The link, http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://papermodels.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/suzuki-car-sx4-wrc.jpg&imgrefurl=http://papermodels.wordpress.com/category/cars-tractors-boxes-rally-f1/&usg=__FBp_c7hbp1c0KrwQO88au1a7oAk=&h=338&w=450&sz=59&hl=en&start=16&sig2=UeRo2r1ckeCUM3LnN46Lhw&um=1&tbnid=UEUboawEmWx_jM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsuzuki%2Bmodel%2Bcar%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GWYE_enUS345US345%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=H80aS4jWO47M8Qa8ueHlAw

Free Andrew Loomis Books!!!

If you're an illustrator and haven't heard of Andrew Loomis then you will certainly be glad you stopped by this blog. I grew up in a home that was pretty much illiterate (or maybe that should be ill-art-erate) when it comes to art. My exposure to art was my older sisters traced drawings of cartoon characters. I was lucky to have a grandfather who loved art at my age and actually has a HUGE Norman Rockwell collection which he loved to show us whenever we stopped by for a visit. Since art college he has even opened me up to a whole world of his art he created for a mail-art instruction school he participated in at my age. In my senior year of high school I was one of two people in my whole art class who had a hard time passing an art history test my teacher gave us. As I left for college all I knew is that I loved making art and I wasn't too bad at it either.

Unfortunately my poor knowledge of art history persisted throughout most of my art college experience despite the required art history courses for which I actually bought and read the huge text books for. I just couldn't grasp the stuff. However I eventually got tiered of not having an answer to the question that would continually pop up the more I progressed in my art. First people would ask what college I go to or what I do for a living and when I told them I'm an artist they immediately ask who my favorite artists are. For the longest time the only name I had to throw at them was Norman Rockwell. Sure I knew of Picasso, Monet, Gauguin, Michelangelo, etc. etc. and I grew up on Bob Ross and some dude who drew cartoon characters on tv, but I was never really really inspired by any of them. Not initially anyway.

The point I'm trying to make is that I finally broke this bad habit and came across some spectacular artists who i admire and learn from on a regular basis. Without these influences I don't feel i would have been able to pursue my art in the way I have, creating children's books, commissioned paintings, logos etc. So my hope in writing this is that one young artist who may be in a similar situation would start the whole process early. Look at tons of art and find out who is your favorite. Then buy their books, read their blogs, watch their videos, learn from them. Soon I hope to have the time to post a list of artists who I look to for inspiration and guidance whenever I'm faced with challenges. For now I Just want to open your eyes to one artist in particular as he has taught many of the greatest illustrators with his books. That is Andrew Loomis. Unfortunately his books are out of print but luckily I found them for free in PDF form here http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/ . So go download them and start reading! More artists and great resources to come.

Weird mediums

Weird mediums
This is a blog post I have been meaning to write for a while now. I just haven’t been able to find the time. Since I still have not time I’m just going to post a bunch of photos and links from various artists using weird mediums to create art and not say much about each one. Some of these artists have really done some terrific art and it’s worth the time to go check out more of their work.
For some great painted hand art and optical illusions check out http://visualfunhouse.com/body_paint/painted-hand-optical-illusions.html

Won Park makes some amazing money origami. http://orudorumagi11.deviantart.com/gallery/

Scott Wade makes art using dirt smudged around on the back windshield of cars. This is just one sample of his. Check out more at http://www.dirtycarart.com/

A guy on youtube by the screen name of Eclecticasylumart makes are with his food. One sample below shows an image draw with his fingers and BBQ sauce. It’s way more impressive when you watch him make the art before your eye so go check it out. HE uses other food too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3pz2VgIM7E&feature=related

Eric Daigh was recently featured on the morning news for his pushpin art. Initially I found this to be pretty darn cool but then they showed his process and it kind of ruined it for me since he takes a photo and breaks it into pixels which he follows as a guide to place the pushpins. So I think I’ll stick with monet and van Gogh . http://daigh.com/

Nathan Sawaya sculpts with legos. You may have seen his art on the news as well as he was featured a couple of times over the past two years. http://brickartist.com/

Liu Bolin is known as the invisible man. He actually paints on his clothing and face to match whatever is behind him then spends hours getting a photo of him in just the right position to make himself blend into the background. One sample below, can you find him? Check out http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/5886805/The-invisible-man-Liu-Bolins-camouflage-artwork.html?image=17

Julian Beever uses chalk and concrete for his creations. At least two people have sent me a link to his site so far so I figure he needs to be included in this post. Below is one sample but you deff. Don’t want to miss out on the rest so check out http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/batman.html

Eric Grohe does murals as well but uses brick Walls for his canvas. http://www.ericgrohemurals.com/projects/diamond.html

And of course Edgar Mueller. (ice) http://www.metanamorph.com/

I plan to do separate blog posts on Sand castles, snow sculptures and Pumpkin carving when I find the time later down the road.

Pumkin Carving

Last year I entered the Pumpkin Masters Carving Competition for the first time and surprised myself by winning second place in the faces category. I did a bunch of research on pumpkin carving techniques and set to work. That process produced "Enchanted Lady" pictured below.



So this year I couldn't pass up the opportunity to give it another go. I had to revisit some articles on carving techniques and discovered one sentence which changed my whole approach. One of the articles said something about how small details should be carved by taking away the skin and some pumpkin flesh but not carving all the way through. It also spoke of carving away a bunch of pumpkin from inside out to make the pumpkin walls thicker. This is common knowledge for anyone who does this on a regular basis but for me it was a revelation of sorts. Last years carving was the first I had done since childhood and I had always just assumed that carving all the way through was the way to go. Carving away the skin was almost like doing Scratch art. I also decided to work with a clamp light bulb on an extension cord placed inside the pumpkin while I carved so I knew exactly how much to carve away. I wouldn't advise this for young children or anything as the bulb gets hot but it was a ton of fun for me. Below is my carving for this year. The voting won't be for another month or so.

Every good carving needs a good stating place and this competition requires you send a copy of original carving design. SO below is my design. I never would have even considered drawing such tiny detail work if I had thought I would need to carve all the way through the pumpkin. I projected this design onto the pumpkin surface with an art projector I use for my illustrations, then drew it with a permanent pen that I tested before to be sure it wouldn't rub off when the pumpkin got wet pulp on it.

Fun fact: For some reason I seem to misspell the same words over and over again even when I know the correct spelling. "Pumpkin" is one of those words as I tend to spell it "pumkin". Every time you see that word in this post it was spelled wrong until iwent back to correct it.

Getting the Perfect Reference for Tricky Perspectives

If you've ever had to illustrate objects or people from weird angles for a client or otherwise then you should find today's post quit helpful. I actually recently came across this dilemma with a few of the children's illustrations I've been working on for my recent book. In one illustration I wanted a view of passengers getting ready to board the train but the perspective is from that of an ity bitty caterpillar in the hub of one of the trains wheels. So I needed to figure out how to get reference image of people from a perspective below street level. One obvious option is to have people lie down and try to get a picture from below them. the trouble with this is that their clothing will look wrong because the folds don't have gravity effecting them. A similar option would be to actually put yourself in that particular position and take a picture. If you're doing an illustration from above someones head looking down on them at strange perspective then just get up on something high and get someone to pose for you. Both of these will most likely give you trouble with the way the camera has translated the foreshortened limbs. There are a couple of other options I have enjoyed playing around with that don't include those wooden dolls you get at the art store.
For a while I have referenced a site called www.posemaniacs.com where you will find tons of poses of computer sculpted models . The best part about this site is that you can rotate around the poses to see them from all sorts of angles.





Another great option for models of people and other objects like cars, helicopters, building etc. can be found at www.3divia.com . This site is just amazing because once again you get to rotate around the poses and the objects. You have to do a quick download of there software but I've found it useful so far. I've only used the free models but I can just imagine how amazing the others must be judging from the free samples. How often do you really get the chance to rent a helicopter and take a photo of a house from above anyway? obviously you could spend hours looking for reference online but you won't get to choose the exact point of perspective you want unless you draw it all out, happen to know a drafting software or own a helicopter.



There is also the whole area of creating your own physical models out of clay, paper mache, wood, found objects etc. This works pretty good for very specific characters you've designed for a project. For example you may design an alien with all kinds of strange limbs so the best option most likely is to build your own model. For one of my books I got to do a bunch of illustrations of Noah's ark so I decided to take a few hours to actually build a small replica out of wood, shown below.



One final option I've used is called google sketchup which you can actually download for free and legally. This program allows you to build things from the ground up and then you can rotate around, under, above, zoom in and out etc. The trouble is that you will have to spend a bit of time figuring out the software but it's actually not too hard. I actually used this program to redesign my studio room. Now you could go all out and by the expensive programs but who really has the money for those?

Art in the City

For the past ten days I went out to Boston and New York for business and pleasure. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet with publishers as I had originally intended but I did get quit a bit done. I started off in Boston where I had the awesome opportunity to speak with the massart senior illustration class about what life is like after graduation. I was lucky to have three other graduates at my side telling their stories as well. I had plenty of time in Boston to meet with friends and work out some illustration ideas while also leaving myself time to celebrate my birthday and holy week. Luckily I had some amazing friends who let me stay at there places over the eight days. Below is a sketch I did of the Boston skyline.

Then I headed off to New York. Below is a sketch I did in New York’s China town and a sketch of my accommodations at the Bowery white house hostel for two nights. It was basically like sleeping in a closet with a latticework ceiling and each room up against each other with very thin walls. Since it was only two nights, it was actually a fun experience. The showers and bathrooms in general were definitely a bit shady for me though. It reminded me of this one time I went to another school with my wrestling team in high school. They warned me not to drink the water there but I didn’t listen and ended up with the worst stomach pains. Then I found out that the bathroom stalls had no doors, in order to keep kids from doing drugs etc. Let’s just say that was a very uncomfortable night for me, LOL. For my second nights stay at the bowery in NY I came back from the Art Gallery in a dress shirt and dress pants. So there I am with my huge luggage and all dressed up staying in this tiny closet for the night. I swear they checked out my height before I came and made sure I got the room that was one inch too short. If that doesn’t say starving artist then I don’t know what does.

While in New York I met with more friends and attended a gallery show with my “Graduate Pinball” illustration featured in it. All I’ve got to say is that the show was awesome and exciting to be a part of. My painting won second place out of 35 artists, yeah!!! I’ve posted some photos of the show below.

Children's Illustration Process

My process mentioned below is quite long because good children’s book illustration should go beyond what the written word says and go into a further dimension ,adding to the story. Some illustrators just make an image depicting the exact words of the text, which is fine in some cases, but I find that my favorite books demonstrate a give and take relationship between the words on the page and the images.

There are two main categories of children’s books, the picture book or story book. In short, picture books are supported by the pictures and would make no sense without them. Story books are held together by the story and the illustrations serve in a somewhat subordinate role. Neither of these should be limited to what the story tells us.
A picture book may say something like, “The apple was huge” and the image may show the apple taller than buildings and perhaps show workers loading large dump trucks with pieces of apple. A story book may say something like “ The bright red apple was larger than any building in town and the workers had to work day an night to remove the apple before the big day”. While the image would need to communicate these things, it’s still a good idea to add to the image. Perhaps as complicated as adding a huge worm in the apple, snapping at the workers and making their jobs harder, or as simple as adding a small but noticeable worm on a sidewalk, slithering away in horror of how big the apple is.

Thumbnails- The very first art I do after talking to a client about there project is the initial idea thumbnail sketch. I also take lots of notes from the children’s story and from the client on what they would like to see in the illustration. The notes make it easy for me to refer to specific colors mentioned for the scene, specific characters and objects mentioned in the story etc. Most of the smaller elements may not be incorporated into the illustration until the next drawing stage, but it’s good to keep them in the back of your mind. This first image is extremely rough as you can see below.


Then before doing any research I continue to make thumbnail sketches (smaller than a business card) , loosely putting my initial ideas on paper. This helps weed out the bad ideas and develop them into good ones. Generally clients have a very static idea in mind of how each image should look. That’s where it’s good to take notes on there thoughts, but then be sure to give them other unique and creative solutions that would work just as well or even better. This takes more time but it ensures you get fresh results instead of just the first idea that pops into your head. Generally the first idea you have isn’t necessarily the best or most unique. If you get stuck for ideas at this point try some of the tips from my post titled “Generating ideas and Inspiration.” Below you will see a few of the thumbnail sketches I did for my image “The Search for Rudy”. The clients asked for an image of Rudy sleeping behind a trash can in an alley, while kids and a helicopter are searching for him. In my thought process I figured it may be cool to have an image looking down on the town from the helicopter or a bell tower. This is also a good point to start drawing elements at different scales. You’ll notice the difference between the giraffe in 15 and 16. The clients loved these ideas but decided to stay with their original idea, so Rudy would be center stage.

Refined Sketch- Once they chose from about fifteen thumbnail sketches we go onto a more detailed sketch maybe two in which I include facial expressions, correct size relationships etc. when we narrow it down to one image I go into a much more detailed sketch. Sometimes I get reference photos before I even begin sketching the thumbnails but by the time I get to these final sketches I have to get even more references for the image.
References consist of googled images, movies, national Geographic’s, travel books, art books, figurines, textured fabrics, objects, nature etc. Take lots of photos, and use more than one model or more than one costume. In some cases I even make clay sculptures of characters, cardboard sculptures of buildings etc. to help get lighting right on the objects and to help draw characters in weird positions from any angle.

Value Sketch- Now I decide if I need to do a black and white shaded sketch or if I can go right to the color sketches. For this image I had a pretty good idea what the values should be and I did experiment a bit during the thumbnail stage. For the more complex images I almost always do a value sketch to make the color stage easier. Sometimes I do more than one of these for the client to choose from. I might have a sketch of a room interior and the shading will show if the room is lit or not among other things.

Color/Hue- Now that I have a final sketch that the client and I are happy with, I move on to color samples. The idea here is that you want to give yourself and the client a pretty good idea what the final overall color scheme will be. Don’t worry about the details at this point, you want to see what a purple shirt looks like up against the background colors, we don’t need to know the color of the buttons on the shirt. Experiment the same as you did with the thumbnail sketches. If you’re doing an illustration of a UFO it might be cool to have a greenish tint to a night sky rather than a dark blue or black. For one of my recent logo designs I did thirty color samples. For some tips and tricks with color check out my post titled color tips and tricks.

Once I have a refined sketch, a good value study, a good color sample and some photo reference to work from, I’m clear to go onto the final image. Generally I work on a pretty good size canvas around 18”x24”, so I usually use a projector to draw the final image onto the canvas. When I work with watercolor I usually work around 8”x11”, I find that sometimes it works nicely to print the drawing directly onto watercolor paper.