He talked  a little about his working method in the first feature, how he uses printed ink and cut-out bits of paper. I was interested to find out more. Luckily, Chris was more than happy to take us through his work step by step, even taking the time to create this wonderful, original piece especially for this Ape on the Moon tutorial. Enjoy!

Step 1: Sketch

I begin every image I create in my sketchbook. I like to spend quite a lot of time at the sketchbook stage; I am not particularly a very good draughtsman, so I like to spend quite a lot of time redrawing the preliminary sketches in order to get the scale and composition of the elements just right.

I used to do this in my sketchbooks but that quickly became very expensive. I would fill a book in no time, and when I’d come back to look over my old sketchbooks (which I often do for inspiration) there would only be 6 or 7 images in it.

I now get a basic idea down in my book and then do all of the redrawing on cheap A4 printer paper.

Step 2: Inky Mess

When I feel like I have a good idea of what the finished image will look like on paper, I quickly begin the making process.

I start by inking up plain A4 printer paper with black block-printing ink and a roller. This is often my favourite part of the image making process; texture plays a big part in my work so I like to change it up each time to see what different outcomes I achieve.

I tend to do this around once a month; stockpiling as much inky pages as possible. Once I start with ink I can become quite engrossed and it can be quite time consuming.

Step 3: Cut & Scan

Once the inky paper has dried, I can begin cutting chunks out of it with my trusty scalpel. I cut out each and every possible shape for every element of the image.

This can take from 10 minutes to an hour depending on the complexity of the image.

I use this stage as another excuse to experiment with new shapes. I try not to be too accurate with the cutting as I like my work to have a hand-made aesthetic to it.

When all the shapes have been cut out, I place them face down onto my scanner and Import them into Photoshop as a greyscale image.

Step 4: Assemble It

Now I have all of my elements scanned into Photoshop I use one of my custom Photoshop actions; this adjusts the brightness, contrast and levels and also deletes the white background leaving only the textured black elements.

I can now very easily select each element by drawing around them with the lasso tool. Then, using the move tool, I can drag the selected element onto a new document. Each new element that is dragged onto the new document forms a new layer.

I begin to move the elements into position based on my preliminary sketch. As you can see in the image, my layer count is often quite high for what appears to be a simple image. I like to keep the option to move elements around as I am usually unhappy with the composition at some point during this stage.

When I am happy with the positioning of the main elements, I begin to colour them. I don’t start the image with a colour scheme in mind. I usually apply a flat background colour to start with and the rest just evolves with the image. My images usually go through at least 2 or 3 colour schemes.

Step 5: The Finishing Touches

At this stage I tend to have a pretty solid colour palette and composition but the image is still lacking in character. If the image needs some finer details, I go back to the drawing board, so to speak. I take a sheet of plain A4 paper, my Pilot V-Ball pen and my Pentel brush pen and begin drawing new elements, textures, patterns etc.

Then, using the exact same process as with the cut out elements, I scan in, colour and apply each new element to the image until I am ultimately satisfied that it is finished!

© Chris Madden, 2011. 

On top of her sculptural illustrations, Jessica also enjoys creating stereoscopic, aka 3D, images. She was kind enough to take the time to tell us more about this process and provide a few steps to get you started.

Can you tell us a little more about stereoscopic images?

Stereoscopic images are made by combining two pictures taken at two different angles that, when viewed simultaneously, create the illusion of depth and 3D space. Because we have binocular vision (two eyes used together), our brains are accustomed to combining images this way. A stereoscopic image is a single image in which two different angle views have been combined into one. 3D pictures which require red/blue glasses make use of the color filtering properties of the the glasses to separate these two views, so that each eye sees a different view.

What will you be showing us in this tutorial?

This tutorial will show you how to create a 3D scene, then photograph it from 2 angles, and finally combine the 2 pictures in Photoshop to create a stereoscopic (3D) image that can be viewed with blue/red glasses.

For this tutorial I created an illustration of Jane Goodall playing chess with an ape.

Step 1:

Start by sketching out an idea/composition.

Step 2:

Sculpt all characters props and background.

Step 3:

Paint and add clothing and other details.

Note: Keep in mind that all details will be enhanced when viewing your image in 3D, so make sure that stitching, paint, and textures are all to your liking.

Step 4:

Set up your characters in a scene. Remember to refer back to your sketch, where you have already planned the composition.

Step 5:

On a sheet of paper laid flat in front of your scene, draw two marks. The distance between the marks should be the same as the distance between your main character’s eyes. The distance will depend on the size of your sculpted character. I used 1cm (0.5in).

Note: Because I’m working with miniature environments and characters to create a 3D effect, the distance between the two camera positions must match the scale. So I always use the distance between the characters eyes as a guide. If you are making 3D images of the ‘real world’ you will want to use the average distance between a person’s eyes (roughly 2.5in).

Step 6:

Take two pictures one beside the other. Line your camera up with the first mark (right) and take your first photograph. Then slide the camera over to your second mark (left) and take your second photograph.

Step 7:

Import your two photographs into your computer and open an editing software. I use Photoshop.

Step 8:

In Photoshop:

First open your ‘right’ image. Then open your ‘left’ image and drop that on top of your ‘right’ image. You will now have two layers in your photoshop file.

Click your left picture layer and go to LAYER STYLE (by double-clicking in the layer) and un-check the red channel.

Step 9:

Align the left layer so that the focus point in your illustration matches perfectly with the right layer.

Step 10:

Crop the edges of the image and you now have a 3D/stereoscopic illustration. Experiment and play around with the technique on all sorts of images.

A great technique for us to try! Thanks, Jessica!

© Jessica Fortner, 2011.

As someone who labours intensely in his drawings, I thought it would be interesting to find out how he goes about planning his projects. He was kind enough to give us a detailed insight into one of his previous commissions.

“This is a job I did for a deluxe corporate hardback book – art directed by VSA Partners in the US.

The book told a series of anecdotes surrounding the lives of the original American Express cardholders. Each story was assigned to an illustrator to create a double page spread.

My story told of a photographer who found himself at a dinner party with Leonard Bernstein, together with an ageing Charlie Chaplin and his daughter. The photographer captured a poignant shot when Bernstein began playing the piano and Chaplin responded by singing.

I was briefed to represent the scene in realistic colour pencil style, incorporating all the key players. I was specifically instructed not to seek out or look at the original photo, for fear it might influence my depiction. The art director also highlighted a previous observational drawing of mine, ‘Tourists’, as a style guide.”

“I began by researching images of Bernstein and the elderly Chaplin, along with other elements from the story, on sites like Getty images, and Flickr. Gradually I built up a picture by trial and error from a combination of imagined and found elements.

I sketched this collage and submitted it as my initial rough.”

“The first rough was rejected by the client as being a little too literal. They pointed out that they needed to see more of the dramatic cropping seen in the ‘Tourists’ sketch. Following a conversation with the art director, it was agreed that I should lose the photographer and the daughter from the scene. The art director suggested that the photographer’s presence be merely suggested by showing the viewfinder of his camera.

My second rough was simpler, and occupied a less realistic room space – focusing more on the abstract elements of the piano to create beauty in the scene. I was much happier with this version and so, thankfully, was the client.”

“For the third rough I incorporated the last few client comments – to add some room details in the background and to re-introduce the presence of the daughter. At last I was green-lighted to final artwork.”

“The repro size of the book was larger than A3 – so I worked on an A2 sheet of paper. I normally work slightly larger (130-150%) than any reproduction requirement. A colour pencil sketch always looks better when it’s slightly reduced, the details become tighter. If I work too large, though, (150% or more) then I find any advantage is lost – I just create more work for myself, labouring over details that will be lost when the sketch is reduced.

The deadline was tight, and I knew I’d need to allow a whole day for scanning. The rough was approved on the Tuesday night, the deadline was Friday lunchtime. Unfortunately this meant an all-night work session… I started colouring at about 11am on the Wednesday and (give or take the odd meal and coffee break) I finished about 24 hours later.

Next I needed to scan it. This is a key part of the process – colour pencil can be very frustrating to scan. I took it to a repro shop with an A1 scanner – and was disappointed with the results. The blacks weren’t really dark enough and the colours seemed too gaudy.

I made the decision to re-scan it on my home scanner – which involved scanning it in four sections and then weaving it together on Photoshop.

The artwork was ready to submit on the Thursday night – the client was pleased. The only small amendment was a request to add Bernstein’s name to the sheet music. I did this addition on a separate sheet of paper and merged it in on photoshop.”

“A few months later I received a copy of the finished book. It is sometimes disappointing to see how work prints, as colours often look quite different when they come through a commercial press, but this worked out pretty well. I was pleased.”

A lot of hard work in a short time, seemingly necessary for such a beautiful end product. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Peter!

© Peter James Field, 2010.

I was struck by the beauty and appeal of such a well designed, drawn and printed book so I thought it would be nice to find out more about the process behind creating such a work, which he had published through a cool printing and publishing company called Nobrow.

Jack gives details of his book: ‘Jeff Job Hunter‘ and the process behind its creation, below.

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Introducing the Book:

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Jeff Job Hunter is about an unemployed man who simply can’t find work. Jeff is on his 13th week of the dole, and has his payments stopped. He has to go on a work placement to receive further benefits. His work placement is to go into the dungeon underneath the job centre to kill a monster to start his payments again.

Jeff Job Hunter is a story based around the trouble I had with signing on, when I was unemployed. I wanted to create a comic which reflected the situation I was in, but add in my sense of humour.

Nobrow approached me after they had spotted my work at the D&AD design awards. They create artists books, comics, narratives, limited prints and showcase the talents of a variety of artists and illustrators.

I had worked with them on their Nobrow: Jungle book, they were pleased with my work, and knew that I drew comics for fun.

They want to give a platform for British comic artists and writers because there isn’t really a platform for comics in the UK like there is in Europe or America. They asked me if I was interested in creating a comic book for them, gave me the specifications and asked me to start writing up a story.

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Planning the Story:

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When I had to sign on, everything seemed pointless. I would search for jobs days on ends, attend interviews well out of my way, where I would have trouble getting to work everyday. The people at the job centre just didn’t seem to care, they always treated me like I was a waste of time and space.

I wanted to try and get some of that into my comic, a poor man going to impossible lengths to get work or to receive payments while receiving indifference from the job centre employees. I had no shortage of ideas for the project because of my experiences, so I started to plan.

I started off with a blank page for each comic page,and started to try and flesh out the idea by drawing a small rough comic. At this point, I didn’t know the style, or really what was going to happen.

I showed Nobrow the comic, they made suggestions and changes and then I started to write up a much more solid story based on the feedback and rough comic. Now I had a script for each page, so I made another plan which was much more developed.

The style was taking shape, and I managed to fit more into the comic. After a few chops and changes, Nobrow were happy with the comic, and I started to work on the final.

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Planning the Visuals:

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Visually I tried to keep to my usual style when I work in pen, I thought this would relax me and get the best work out of me. I wanted to keep it simple, but also be able to build up areas of detail when needed.

When I created the characters I wanted to create a protagonist you could sympathise with.

I designed my characters hunched over, so they looked tired and like they couldn’t be bothered with things.

I usually draw my characters with large eyes, but I thought that I could get more expressive faces by simplifying them to black dots.

With panel layout I kept things quite traditional. I didn’t want to cram too many panels in, so I think at the most I have five or six panels per page.

I use more panels if I need to get crucial timing across, and less panels for easier to read material.

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Rendering the Finished Piece:

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When inking the finals, I planned out the pages and doubled the size to get more detail into them, put in bleeds and panels, and then inked into them. Nobrow have a very unique way of colouring their work, which I had to follow.

I was given three colours to work with, and had to use Photoshop to merge and blend these three layers of colour to get a variety of other tones and colours. Mixing all three gets the dark line I used for outlines.

The process was quite complicated, but the outcome was well worth it.

Text wasn’t too much of an issue, I’m a big fan of hand drawn types, so I hand wrote everything in the book, including the publishing information in the back.

I didn’t need to worry too much about printing, as I sent my files to Nobrow, and they checked everything was in order before the print run.

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Getting Published:

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I’ve worked backwards for this process, instead of approaching a publisher with an idea, they saw that I drew and self published comics, and wanted to give me a chance to create a published work. It was going to be in book form from day one.

© Jack Teagle and Nobrow, 2010

I think from my experience, the best advice I can give is, keep drawing comics, just draw for you own amusement, self publish, post online, get them seen!

The more comics you draw, the better you will get at pacing, timing, telling a story and drawing. People will be able to see you create comics and approach you.

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Buy the book here!

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Santiago is back to share his step by step work process behind one of his recent posters, featuring the Portland hipster Bigfoot. Enjoy!

Materials: Pencil; Sumi ink and brush; Block printing ink; Roller; Plexiglass; X-acto knife.

1. Ideas

The challenge was to create a poster for a Society6 Portland poster series based on fun facts centering around Portland in Oregon.

One thing that is often associated with the Northwest is the mythical creature Bigfoot. Bigfoot is not necessarily associated with Portland, but I figured this is a place he would call home if he were given the chance.

2. Sketch

I always start with a light pencil or blue pencil sketch and then ink that. I don’t do to many preliminary sketches. There’s usually a very rough sketch just to get the idea and placement across and after that is final.

I sketch & ink the different elements separately and then assemble and color them in Photoshop.

I wasn’t quite happy with the first Bigfoot, so I drew another one on a separate piece of paper and then collaged them together.

3. Color and Texture

I create my textures with mono-prints or with ink. For the river texture I made some wavy textures with mono-prints. I rolled some ink onto the Plexiglas and made some wavy strokes with a brush.

I then transferred the ink to a piece of sketchbook paper.

Colors don’t really matter at this point, I usually change colors in Photoshop.

For the clouds I cut out some cloud shapes, rolled ink on the Plexi, put clouds face down on ink, place another piece of paper on top of cloud, cut out and then scribble on top of that sheet. The scribbles are transferred onto the cloud cut outs.

The bridge and hand lettering were done with Sumi ink and brush..

Once it’s all been scanned and composed in Photoshop, I start playing with color by applying color to individual layers with layer effects.

The multi-colored rain was a bit much so I toned it down and ended up with a more subdued palette.

And there you have it!

ⓒ Santiago Uceda, 2010

Excellent, thank you Santiago!

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In an interview-style tutorial, Ben is back to teach us how he makes them, showcasing one of his brand new patterns in detail.

For those that don’t know about him, Ben the Illustrator (Ben O’Brien) is based in Cornwall, England, working on numerous projects with the help of his wife Fi. Ben always seems to be busy on something intriguing, so I’m very pleased he and Fi have found a bit of time to share their digital design expertise with us.

I’ve asked Ben a few questions as part of this pattern tutorial.

Tools required: Pencil, paper, scanner, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator

How do you come up with a new idea for a pattern?

It’s pretty much the same as an idea for a regular illustration, it’s a matter of our mood, something that’s inspired us, or something we’ve not done before.  Pretty much everything I create along with Fi is landscapes, from the natural to the man-made, whether it’s for a pattern or an illustration, for a client, for fun or for our homewares products.

We will generally have the theme or subject matter before we’ve figured out how it will work as a pattern.  You could flip that and set out to think of something that will work as a pattern, but I relish the challenge of creating these patterns, it’s not something I have been doing for a long time, probably around a year now.

The key things I’ve learnt is to start fairly simple. Playing with crazy angles or textures and trying to get them to repeat, can be a nightmare if you’ve not got your head around the basics.  So we’ve done repeating patterns of mountain ranges, terraced houses, cable cars and sea otters, but we didn’t have one of perhaps one of our favourites views, hills, trees, lakes and cabins!  So now we’re creating one…

Firstly, it’s often easier to work within a square, it will make your pattern a lot tidier once repeated (although a pattern will still work if the single tile is rectangular).

You’re going to draw your artwork, your one single pattern tile inside a square.

The golden rule is that if a line goes off an edge, then it has to continue in from the opposite edge. So if you draw a flat piece of land, and it goes off the right edge of the square, then that line has to continue into the left side of the tile. So in Figure 1, you can see the 7 lines that go off the right hand side, all come in again on the left.

Figure 1:

The same applies to the 4 lines that go off the top and bottom of the square.

To get these lines to always meet perfectly you could draw a measured grid, or work on a lightbox with a grid underneath.

If you have a line heading for an edge, but you don’t want to bring it into the other side, make sure it concludes right at the edge, like points A and B on the right hand side of the drawing.  The artwork in the middle of the square can do whatever you want it to!

I might clean-up the drawing a bit, especially if I’ve draw in my own guidelines or rulers all over it, then scan it in to the computer.

I’ll take it into Photoshop first, crop the page to the exact requirement and test the repeat, by just copying and pasting the square once on either side and above and below.  The quickest, neatest way to do this is to ensure the layer you are drawing on isn’t a background layer (if so, double click the padlock in the layers panel then click OK to make it a normal layer).

Click ‘Image > Canvas Size’ and enlarge both dimensions by 300%.

Select the ‘Move’ tool (the black select arrow) and hold down ‘Shift’ and ‘Alt’ while dragging the image to one side, it will pull a copy of the image and keep it in-line, snapping into place along an edge.  Repeat the copy/drag until you’ve got a cross, which will enable you to see every side of the original, central image tile, with repeats on every side as in Figure 2.

Figure 2:

Figure 3 shows the final, coloured single pattern tile.

Figure 3:

Below is the completed repeated wallpaper pattern, done and dusted!

ⓒ Ben O’Brien, 2009

How did you get into the work you do?

‘I have always been interested in becoming an artist in some sort of way or another. I had a lot of interest in painting, drawing and printmaking in junior high/high school. I ended up taking some photography classes in school and really liked the immediacy of it, not to mention being able to play with lots of nifty gadgets. I was able to get the level of detail and texture that I could not get with my painting and printmaking. I spent a lot of time looking at magazines and time at the library researching artists. I ended up running across artists like Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Joel Peter-Witkin, Matt Mahurin, John Heartfield, Hans Neleman and comic works by Bill Sienkiewicz. Something just sort of clicked’.

‘I started messing around with assemblage type work, building really crappy sets, abusing my friends as models taking pictures of them, printing them out, painting on them and then rephotographing them again. I had no idea how these artists were creating the work they did so i just started to experiment. I ended up winning some national arts awards in high school for some of my photo work. I thought it was a sign, so I went off to art school with some friends who were also attending.

It was more a commercial art school. I realized quickly that my work did not fit in with the school. I was told by a few of the faculty members that I should think about going to different school (might of had to something to do with the shellaced bird head attached to one of my pieces that I turned in, I spent a lot of time arguing with faculty and students whether my work was photography or not).

I actually learned a lot about using real studio equipment and camera’s at the school. At this time i got a chance to start doing photography and art directing for a snowboard clothing company.

I ended up ditching school to start working. We pretty much go free reign to do whatever we wanted to do and learned way more about the real world than I would ever had in school. I started experimenting more and more with assembled type work. I really started being influenced by vintage commercial type illustrators and design.

I really wanted to be a commercial photographer but would get commercial type jobs (I.e. shoot this one white seamless) and just hate doing them. The idea that i was going up against these guys with huge studios with assistants and tons of really expensive gadgets did not seem feasible to me. I realized that i liked doing this illustrative type work. i was more interested in illustration/design than photography so I began to push myself in that direction’.

Can you describe your work process and tools used for your compositions?

‘It is hard for me to really pin down how I do my stuff. it really changes for each piece. Sometimes it could be toy cameras, digital, or large format (or all three), homemade lighting rigs, studio strobes, natural light, or just a plain flash light. This is not to mention all the props that need to be built and sourced, costumes made, backgrounds or sets made and so on.

My work process really varies. It really depends on money, time, the complexity of the idea, the props that I can find or build. Sometimes it might be completely done on the computer, other times I try to build the whole thing as a large set. if I spend too much time in front of the computer on one I will usually freak out and make myself do the next one completely by hand’.

London-based Aaron was kind enough to answer some questions about his work and provide some exciting ‘behind the scenes’ insight into his most recent graphic novel, the grotesquely delightful The Ugly Duckling.

What kind of training have you had in illustration up until now?

I haven’t had too much of a formal illustration education. I’ve just always been a drawer. I went to the University of Wisconsin, but they didn’t have much to offer for commercial illustrators at the time so I was steered into graphic design.

It wasn’t until I landed in San Francisco that I started to pick up the pencil again and got involved in animation and character design.

Who is the person that most inspires you?

I don’t know if there’s just one person, but as a kid I loved Mercer Mayer. He’s not as well known as Maurice Sendak, but his goofy, detailed monsters and adventurous stories really grabbed me.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels, especially Guy Davis in the BPRD books and Lewis Trondheim’s French series, Dungeon. Both have such a unique way at looking at monsters and characters done with loose lines.

I come from a family of teachers, so I have to say that teachers also are an inspiration to me. Whenever I get to New York City, I draw with my brother’s class. He has one of the toughest jobs ever! I’m just hopeful that a kid in school will pick up one of my books in the library and be inspired like I was.

How did you get into drawing for graphic novels and is it hard work?

After working in animation, I wanted to guide myself into the publishing world. I started with a creepy graphic novel based on the Three Little Pigs a year or so ago.

It’s super fun to create your entire world on paper but also very time consuming to do everything from character design to end coloring, so I probably won’t continue with them exclusively. I’m moving more into children’s picture and chapter books. But if the right story comes along…

Can you describe your work process in drawing up and illustrating the recent ugly duckling graphic novel?

I start out sketching and designing the main characters in the story:

I use Col-Erase Blue Pencils for all my sketching. I got hooked on them when working in animation. They sharpen to a fine point and don’t smudge. Once the characters are approved, I storyboard the book out very loosely, to see if the action and the scenes are flowing together:

After that I lightly sketch out the finals on Strathmore Bristol Vellum Paper and ink it in with a variety of pens. My favorites right now are Faber-Castell Pitt Pens. However, I’m always on the look out for better ways to ink:

The inked work is then coloured digitally in Photoshop:

ⓒ Aaron Blecha, 2009

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve just finished my third graphic novel based on fairy and folk tales. It’s Paul Bunyan: a character of old American Tall Tales. I’m also illustrating a few chapter books for Penguin that will be coming out next year.

Looking forward to it, Aaron!

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