The client wanted to see what a finished version of George might look like so I was asked to ink up some samples. I’ve learned that for many people it’s difficult for them to visual what a rough sketch might look like as a finished illustration. The fellow on the right has a lot of the elements that made it in to the George’s finally design. The head is pretty much what we went with. The rest of him is still more complex than what we ended up with.
Designing George, Part 5
I did a number of the designs for George while the designer/art director sat next to me and made suggestions. That’s why the two very non-George heads are at the top of the pages. I was demonstrating some point about illustration at the time. I don’t remember what that point was now of course. The guy in the jacket is another variation on George that was quickly abandoned.
Designing George, Part 4
The client asked for George to be hip looking. That’s where the shaved head version comes from. There are lots of hip guys with shaved heads. The curly hair – not so hip. The girl is there in case the client wanted to consider having a female mascot.
Designing George, Part 3
About the only thing that had definitely been established was that George would have glasses – modern sleek glasses not big Buddy Hollies or large 70’s style shades. Beyond we hadn’t decided on clothes, hairstyle or a definite body type.
Designing George, Part 2
One of the challenges of working with a client who is just looking for an illustrator rather than someone who specifically wants my illustrations is that I need to figure out what the client is seeing in their mind when they are describing an image. “Intelligent”, “friendly”, “masculine” all look different to different people. It’s even more of a challenge when the person who is art directing me isn’t actually the client. The two of us may get something together and then the client will say that that wasn’t what they pictured. George took quite a few back and forth sessions before everyone was satisfied.
Designing George
This the first of a number of development sketches for the character of George. George is the mascot for a series of self help legal books. He went by a number of different names before they decided on that George. The client was looking for a character that seemed friendly, trustworthy and knowledgeable. It took us a while before we got a design that worked for everybody.
Return of the Bookie
This is the final design of the anthropomorphic book. I did the final rendering in Illustrator so that he had a clean smooth look.
Oz Squad Sketches
Sketchin’ the Squad. Any guesses as to who is represented here?
Happy Books
These are development sketches I worked up for a mascot character for a book packaging company. He was used as part of a diagram to show the different stages for writing, editing and printing a book.
Crustaceanman
This happy fellow is part of a superhero team who gained their abilities by accidentally merging with alternate dimensional lifeforms. Said team was exploring said dimension when their equipment malfunctioned. Isn’t that always the way?
