My Illustration Planning Process

The above illustration is the header art for my Facebook fan page. In this post I thought I would show you part of my planning process for an illustration. I have a rather unorthodox manner of working out an illustration. I tend to make things up as a go along. Any thought that comes to me, I pencil it out in the side panel for consideration.

All of the notations that you see around the final ink line drawing demonstrate that process. You can see that my inked title lettering on the right side ended up on the cutting room floor, along with most of the other notations above and below the illustration.

After I was satisfied with the contents of the illustration, I scanned it and painted it in Photoshop using my Wacom Cintiq. I'm so glad that early on, even before art school, I worked at teaching myself how to paint. I've done more than my share of simple line and wash art, but it's so much more fun to paint, with or without the support of an ink line.

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles?