Creating an Illustration: Part I: Sketching

People are curious to know how long it takes me to create an illustration. I usually answer that it really depends on the style used and on the type of scene. A scene with many details and characters will take a lot longer than a simpler scene with less going on. Each kind of illustration has its own process that takes it from the simple sketch to the final product. In this post, I will break down the process I used when creating the Bikur Cholim scene. This is not really a tutorial but more of a step-by-step guide of how I like to work.

The first step- before anything- is brainstorming. Before I even get to start drawing, I must decide what will be going into the illustration. How many characters will there be? Where are the characters (outdoors, indoors, in which room…)? What kind of objects are in the scene that I will be drawing. I make a list and even a few sketches of the characters and items. For this step I like to use pencil and paper (as opposed to photoshop). For example, for this scene, I would quickly draw three girls, a teddy bear, balloons, a bed, a door etc anywhere on my sketchpad. I’m not thinking of where each object or character would be placed. I am just thinking of  what object or character will be included in the illustration. Once I have a general idea of what kind of scene with what kind of items, characters, will be drawn- and have written/sketched them on my outline, I am ready to move onto the next step.

The next step I use is concept sketching. I have all the items that I need to go into my drawing- now I have to decide on placement. With my sketchpad and pencil, I create a few small boxes (a.k.a. thumbnails) and play around with placement ideas. These sketches are legible to no one but myself. Once I decide on the general placment, angle, perspective of the scene, I am ready to move into photoshop- hurray!!! Now the fun really starts. 1 sketch 2 sketch I recreate the thumbnail sketch that I was happy with. As you can see, it definitely does not look pretty. Nor is it totally similar to the placement of items in the final illustration, but that’s okay.

Now, I start to work on a little more detail and play around with the placement a little bit more- to perfect it. As you can see, the door and wall corner moved closer to the characters. Space is a very important element that affects the legibility and fluidity of the illustration. It is not about drawing skill at this stage- it is all about the placement of each character and object in the scene. I want the scene to read clearly and that the eye should be drawn to the most important parts of the picture first and to the secondary elements next.

Once the scene is set up, it’s time to focus on the details of the image. First, I start to build the anatomy of the characters- I want to make sure that the body form is accurate and proportionate. 3 sketch

 

Once I have the anatomy built, I can focus on the actual drawing. Here is where I draw details- such as facial features, clothing, furniture etc.

By the end of this stage, we have a completed final sketch.

We’ll continue with the next step- the linework- in a future post. Hope you enjoyed so far!

4 final sketch


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *