Failed Tales of Romance: Step-By-Step

A little less than a year ago, I did a "Step-By-Step" entry here, where I walked you all through my process as I created a vector illustration of a dancing woman (read it here). Because I thought that was an interesting exercise, and because I recently did an illustration for a Bureau of Drawers' Valentine's show that had a little less-than-conventional creation process, I thought I'd do another post here today. While my first Step-By-Step was more technical in nature. This one ended up being more of a conceptual exercise. If nothing else, it will help show how each drawing is different, and how drastically process can change from illustration to illustration.

For the the Bureau's "Lovesick" show, which will be showing at Fantagraphics Books through early March, each artist was challenged to create a piece that dealt loosely with the idea of unrequited love. So, with that in mind, I set to work...

Idea #1: St. Valentine
Right out of the chute, I became fixated on the idea of doing some sort of religious icon, that reinterpreted St. Valentine. So, looking at Wikipedia's entry on the saint, I noticed this list of his "attributes":

birds; roses; bishop with a crippled or a child with epilepsy at his feet; bishop with a rooster nearby; bishop refusing to adore an idol; bishop being beheaded; priest bearing a sword; priest holding a sun; priest giving sight to a blind girl[1]

Seeing that, my idea was to create an illustration that incorporated as many of those concepts as I could easily include, but which otherwise ignored a lot of the traditional trappings of Catholic images. Sort of a alternate universe take on St. Valentine. This was the sketch that came out of it:



Now, technically, there was a lot that I liked about this image, but -in a moment of clarity- I realized that A) it was getting too esoteric and B) it really didn't have anything to do with unrequited love. So, back to the drawing board...

Idea #2: I Heart... Ew.
While inking the illustration above, I began to realize that it wasn't working, so in the back of my mind another concept started to roll around. I became more and more obsessed with the idea of taking a traditional Valentine's phrase, and -at the risk of falling into a black hole of puns- give it a twist.

First, I considered the idea "Bee Mind" and was going to draw a picture of a lobotomized bee. But, again, probably too esoteric. Then I started to consider a play on the old "I Heart You." Ewe? Maybe I could do sheep? Or, maybe, ew.

This led to this picture of a little girl (based roughly on my daughter) being grossed out by a floating eye and heart.



Again, there were things I liked about it. But, at the end of the day, while I did like the opportunity to figure out how to draw realistic hearts, I felt like the overall layout wasn't quite working and the idea wasn't quite coming together. Plus, again, not really dealing with unrequited love.

Idea #3: Modern Love
So, this was the next thought process I went through:

Why is love so often unrequited these days? Is it because people are hardened to each other? Is it because today's dating scene is considered so difficult to navigate without being trampled on emotionally? If so, would a traditional cupid have any sort of chance? Or, would cupid need an upgrade? What would a modern day cupid look like?

Perhaps that sounds a little too much like a Sex in the City voice-over, but still thus was born this picture:



Gone is the nearly naked baby, now suited up in military camouflage, a utility vest and foam-dome hat. His dainty bow replaced by a state-of-the-art compound bow. If love is a battlefield, at least he's now equipped for it.

OK, this idea I felt had some wings (sic). But, after thinking about it some more, and a little side-long advice from a fellow Bureaucrat, I began to feel it was to... to... well, obvious. I wanted my piece to be something I felt no one else could create, and there was something a little too close to Hallmark card material for me here.

Idea #4: A Robot Raised My Baby
My next idea was to take the idea of unrequited love, and sort of try to turn it and look at it in a different direction.

What is one of the most pure forms of love? Well, arguably, its the love felt between a parent and newborn child. I suppose one could argue that newborns don't truly know how to love since they are still developing, but anyone who's been a new parent and held their new child knows what I'm talking about. (OK, just work with me here, I'm a father of a 2-year-old with a new baby on the way... so this is just the universe my mind lives in these days. Allow me that conceit.)

If that is the symbol for pure low, what symbolizes the inability to love? Well, if you turn to science fiction, you find an easy answer: Robots. How many science fiction fables hing on robots inability to feel emotions? Lots.

So, if babies represent pure, unconditional love and robots represent the inability to love, then it stood to reason that pairing the two was a good representation of unrequited love. The baby folded into the robot, obviously in love with its robot parent. The robot, meanwhile, is ably nurturing the baby, but -in the end- cannot love it. Which resulted in this drawing:



Again, I liked this drawing and idea. But, I was concerned that it would seem to sentimental. Or, without me there to defend it, would a lot of my thoughts not really be readily apparent or just seem flimsy? Again, it just didn't seem to hold up on its own.

So, with four failed concepts, and only a couple days left to the show, what should I do? Well, in the end, I decided to follow a potentially disastrous plan and...

Idea #5: Combine Them!
What I had in my hands were four flawed concepts for illustrations about love. For failed tales I'd attempted to tell. But, maybe, together they began to tell a bigger and more complete story. Maybe, like an anthology, when put together the sum becomes greater than its parts. The tales cover for each others weaknesses and allow the strengths to shine. That was my concept at least. I'll leave it to you to be the judge because...

I had a cover to draw!

Taking the idea of old school anthology comics, like the ones below, I decided to create a "vintage" comic cover in which each of these four stories would get a small place to live.



Using covers like these as my inspiration. I scanned my four original illustrations, brought them into Illustrator, and assembled them all into one rough piece along with some basic comic cover elements (like the Comic Code stamp) and title text. I deliberately kept this rough, because I knew I'd want to heavily redraw it, but at the same time, wanted a loose guideline to follow. Here's what it looked like up to that point:



Printing this out, I fired up my light table, and began to redraw it. Some portions remained pretty true to the original version (like the robot, baby and St. Valentines), but others changed fairly significantly. The "Ew" got dropped, and the little girl got aged a bit to avoid too many babies on the cover. Meanwhile, cupid got stuck into the middle of an aerial battle scene, poor kid. I also added some background elements, redrew some of the type in more stylized letters (like the inexplicable, yet oddly appropriate "Chinese restaurant"-style type for St. Valentines title).

With it redrawn and inked, I then set out coloring it. Early on, I'd decided that I wanted to use a limited color pallet. Though old comics were my stylistic starting point here, I wanted this to also be its own thing, and not just a homage. So, limiting myself to black, gray, pink and red ink, I eventually ended up here:



And that, framed, is what is now hanging on the wall at Fantagraphics. If you enjoyed reading this, I recommend you stop by there and check it out in person. I generally try to not make excuses for my art, but I do want to qualify the above image by saying that my scanner is dying a long slow death, and I don't think the above scan really does it justice. So, see it in person, if you can. Plus, there's a lot of other great art up by my fellow Bureaucrats.

Anyhow, I hope you did enjoy reading this. I'm not saying this is my most favorite drawing ever, but I do think it will always hold a special place in my heart, since I spent so much time living with it and working through it.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day.

Dancing Women: Step-By-Step

Personally, I've always been interested in blog entries and articles in which artists talk about their process of creating an illustration, logo or design. So, in an effort to give back, I thought I'd take some time, look at a recent illustration and explain a little about how I approach an illustration assignment.

For this project, my client is an online company who will soon be launching a website which sells hand-made jewelry. (Note: I'll include a link to the site, and reveal its name, once the site has gone live, but for now will keep things anonymous, so as not to create undo pressure on the client.) The client had asked for an illustration that could go on the website's landing page depicting a young, fashionable female wearing jewelry. Stylistically, the client was also fond of the "Breezy" illustration I had created for Illustration Friday last year.

So, with these two things in mind, I set about the first step of creating an illustration...

Step 1: Thumbnails
(With all the images in this entry, please click on them to see them larger and in more detail.)

In all honesty, I tend to not be big on thumbnails and roughs. But, they do have their roll, and for this illustration, I felt it was important that I do some initial sketches to try to get the right sense of motion. The central figure in the above scan (if you can make sense of it) was the one that I felt finally hit the mark.

Step 2: Hand Drawing

Using the thumbnail from Step 1 as my guide, I created this illustration. At this point, it still needed some refining, but I sent this to the client for an initial review and to make sure I was on the right track.

Except for a few minor changes, the client approved of this direction overall. So, I created a revised version that addressed the client's feedback as well as a couple problems I had with the drawing. This included making the foreground hand less man-ish, changing her hair so that more of the face was revealed, and making the dress smoother and less frumpy.


After making those revisions, the next step was to scan the illustration, and bring it into Illustrator.

Step 3: Tracing the Hand Drawing
Once I scan my hand-drawn sketch, there are actually several different ways that I approach refining and coloring it based on the eventual look that I want. For some drawings, such as my "Intricate" drawing, I actually bring the illustration into Photoshop and do most of the refining and coloring there. But, for this instance, I decided to work exclusively in Illustrator, to help get the lighter and cleaner look I wanted.

Once scanned and placed in Illustrator, the first step was to trace my sketch. To do so, I place the sketch on one layer, lock it, and work on a second layer with the Pen Tool. Since I didn't want the final illustration to feature many contour outlines, instead of tracing the lines themselves, I focused on tracing what would eventually be individual areas of color.

Also, when tracing my line work, it was important to start with the parts of the drawing which would be in the background, and work my way to the foreground. This helps with keeping things ordered correctly at later stages of my work.

Finally, while tracing, I knew that I'd want to deal with the jewelry separately, and in more detail, so I placed it on a third layer.

At the end of tracing my illustration, I hide the sketch layer, and was left with this...


Sort of a mess, no? Well, I'll fix that quickly.

Step 4: Applying Color

Luckily, in this instance, the client had not one but two defined color palettes to work from. This took away a lot of the heavy lifting for choosing colors for this illustration, and allowed me to focus on applying those colors instead.

Taking each individual color field, and applying a color from the clients palette to it quickly got me to here:



At this point, you can see that I'm not focusing much on detail, just getting the broad color choices down. One of the advantages of working in Illustrator is how easily you can switch colors, if things aren't working (as you'll see shortly). Also, you'll noticed that I'm still not worrying about the jewelry, which I plan on addressing last.

Step 5: Refine and Add Detail
With some basic color choices made, I went back and began making tweaks to the illustration. I didn't like the grey in the shirt, so I changed that to a light blue; and then I began adding gradients to my illustration to give the clothes and hair more form and texture.



Also, you see that I added more detail to the eyes, and face. But still no jewelry... yet.

Step 6: Final Details
Read: Add the jewelry

Early on in the sketching process, to help makes sure that the illustration would reflect the style of jewelry sold on the clients site, I had the client forward on some photos of typical pieces. Then, in creating jewelry for the drawing, I tried me best to duplicate what I saw in the photos.



This process, quite possibly, was similar to creating actual jewelry itself, since I had to create a number of small beads (each composed of layers of gradients) and then "string" them together to create each necklace, earring or bracelet. After adding the jewelry, I realized that the entire illustration was looking too cold, so I switched the background to a warm orange to help give it more life.

Step 7: Review and Revision
Now that I felt like this illustration was presentable and on the homestretch to completion, it was time to let the client review it again. Overall, the client was pleased with how it looked, but had a couple minor tweaks she requested. First, the client was worried that the gradients on the dress made it look too sheer. And, second, she felt that way I had cropped the head was odd and made the image look cut off. Both were fair criticisms, so I set about making changes.

With the top of the head added, and with the dress color switched, I felt the drawing was actually much improved, but the background still wasn't quite working for me. So, I experimented with some different shapes until I found a shape an color I felt help make it more dynamic.

Which, brought me to the final version:



Anyhow, I hope that some of you found this interesting. As I said earlier, there are a number of different ways I approach my drawing, so this is by no means my definitive technique. In fact, I'd argue that creating illustrations is a perpetual learning process and -with each illustration I create- I discover a new technique, style or possibility. That's actually one of the things that makes illustration so interesting and exciting.

Thanks for taking the time to read along! Let me know if you have any questions or comments. It would be great to hear from you.