Designing George, Part 17


A third sketch of George for the same illustration. Now that George’s design is established I don’t have to worry about what he looks like I just have to find the best way of presenting what he’s doing. I start by giving the client 3 sketches. The client then usually plays a little mix and match with different aspects from each sketch and I do a second draft combining those aspects.

Superhero Noir


This sketch is based on a character design by Nizzibet. A friend of ours asked us to contribute to an anthology he was thinking of putting together around the theme of superhero noir – that is, noir stories featuring superheroes. We didn’t get much farther than a rough draft of the script and this design for the heroine. Ultimately the story was darker than anything Nizz wanted to spend time writing and longer than I was willing to commit time to without getting paid. Unfortunately the anthology never got beyond the talking stage. Too bad. I may not have felt I could contribute to it but I would have liked to have read it.

Designing George, Part 15


Hey! It’s George!

Now that his design is finalized the client mostly just comes back to me when another George is needed. They tell me what they want George to be doing and I do up some sketches of what that might look like. They then pick and choose what elements they like and I do up a new sketch combining those elements. In this case they requested an illustration of George looking thoughtful.

Designing George, Part 12


These are some pre-vectoring illustrations of George in his final design. Now that we’ve got George’s look worked out we’ve got a basic process for each new illustration. First the client tells me what George needs to be doing. In this case George needed to gesturing at important parts of the text. I then sketch out a few variations of a pose. Once the client decides which one is preferred I ink the sketch with a basic line. I then forward the illustration to the designer who converts it to a vector illustration for smoother reproduction.