Sketch to Final

It can be challenging for potential clients to visualize how my pencil sketches translate to final.

Here's a sketch and the final illustration from a book cover assignment. The sketches leading up to this point are unintelligible, sometimes even to myself. Thank goodness for light tables and erasers! Once the sketch is approved, I place a scan of it in Illustrator and start with the vector art. After laying down basic shapes and colors, I begin experimenting with textures.

Before "finishing" the illustration, I show the client a work in progress for approval on general color. From there on, it's a constant adjustment and fine tuning of how everything works together. Take a look at this screen shot of the final file in "Outline" view. Yikes.