DISTRACTED? is a piece I just wrapped up for illustration (it's due tomorrow morning so it's off of the press). Our challenge was the include a recognizable person + recognizable place + recognizable object and say something meaningful.
MY ILLUSTRATION EQUATION: Amelia Earhart & Abe Lincoln + Park + Mermaid & abdominal Snowman & pogo stick & aliens & chick vacuuming
From there, I started developing concepts, lots of them (forgot to scan them, so sorry, you'll have to wait for a post update if you're really interested). But what I made unique most specifically about this illustration was the medium and process in handling that medium. Originally trained as a traditional artist, I am always looking for ways to include actual drawing and painting into my illustrations while keeping up with technology and teaching myself how to handle those kinds of media on the computer. Each element was drawn, painted, scanned, and edited individually, by hand and then layered together within one file. Here's a quick example:
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| Chick vacuuming (I at least think it's kinda humorous): Drawn with pencil & painted w/ acryllic |
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| Line work done on separate piece of tracing paper and scanned in as a text file by itself |
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| Those new computer monitors > |
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| Each drawing/painting is then organized (despite what it may look like here) & scanned in |
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| Then things are placed and layered among one another and edited within Photoshop (Hue/Saturation + Drop shadows + Smoothing of this and that) |
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| FINAL: Each .tiff file is brought into Illustrator (Photoshop files don't understand .tiffs) and layered and colored on top of the Photoshop file. The Illustrator file is then brought back into Photoshop, final edits are made, and I call it a day and head to the print lab. |
