Thursday, February 28, 2013

Illustration Friday: "Whisper" (With Process)

Mother Nature whispered, "It will be all right, little one."

I really wanted to do an optimistic sort of illustration this week.  This is a crow quill drawing on Canson bristol board.  The piece went through several sketches and line work practice studies, so I saved my scans and stages as I went along for a long-overdue process post.

Thumbnail sketch, approx. 2"x3"

Traced and revised from enlargement of thumbnail

Revisions in Photoshop

Digital line study over final sketch

Further work on the digital line study

Trying out a border
Final illustration

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your process on this. That little bunny has the best expression on his face!
    Nicely done :)

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    1. Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed seeing the sketches!

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  2. So how does it get from sketch to enlargement to digital and back to crow quill board again? I usually use digital as a final step, because I haven't figured out how to map digital work onto boards without using printouts and carbon paper.

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    1. Hi Glen,

      For this illustration I used a printed-out the sketch with a light table because the bristol board was thin enough to see well through it.

      For thicker paper and board, I use a tracing sheet. I make my own by making a dark layer of smudged graphite on one side of a sheet of tracing paper.

      There's one other way I use if the art is going to be scanned as line art, and that is to print the sketch in cyan only onto the paper or board I'm using for the final art. I use Photoshop to get rid of the other colors. This only works if the destination paper is thin and small enough to go through your printer. And there are blue lines on the art so it's not so good if you intend to use the original art for display.

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  3. Oh I love to see the process of pictures! :)
    Very beautiful illustration!

    Miss Drawingdream

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  4. Such amazing detail!! I especially love the detail in the adornments in mother Nature's hair! Really great image, Laurie! And I enjoyed seeing the progress shots!

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  5. This is really beautiful. Each stage of the creation is a fascinating insight into your way of working...thanks for posting this.
    I also really love the sentiment of the piece.

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  6. Such a beautiful piece! Really great work. And thanks for giving us a peek into the process!

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