Mister Savant's Stupid Quest for the Book whose Name he simply, well... Forgot!
This pic is both in Sketch Machine and Illustration because it started off as a pencil sketch in my little notebook, and by the time it was done I figured I might as well colour it up in the GIMP.
I did a bit of cleanup to the pencil work, which was actually a lot harder than I thought because I couldn't just erase things like construction lines without destroying the texture of the paper that was also scanned in. So, I ended up using the clone brush, and it worked out. I mainly got rid of, as I said, construction lines (which I never bother to erase until I ink something) and especially Xaria's eyes, which were originally open but horribly done.
I have left the construction lines in on the typography, however, mostly because I think it adds character to it and contributes to the sketch/underground comic art look that I love.
Or I'm just lazy.
V
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Vishal K Bharadwaj is a graphic designer, photographer, writer and a geek of several persuasions. His body is in Dubai, his heart in India, and his brain roams the internet with abandon. He is not famous, but is sometimes mistaken for being so.
Comments
Woooooooo! LOVE IT!
This is really really awesome, love the deigns on the sides, and you did a lovely job with the lettering along the left. Fantastic! I also really like the way the pencil lines show underneath, its becming more and more part of your style in your finished pieces.
Thanks, I was quite pleased with it myself. The designs on the sides were actually put in because I messed up the perspective stretching off into the distance, and decided to just omit them by framing it in something I could handle better (also it allowed me to draw some more characters without them being off in the distance). The type, therefore, was come up with on the spot (originally the drawing was just Savant looking through books in the library, smiling), and the angel and devil were put in once the left side was done because I figured the piece needed something similar on that side.
Overall, I enjoyed drawing the frame much more than anything else (although I strangely liked drawing the books too).
Hand lettering of that style is something I've done a fair amount of earlier, especially in school, but now that I'm a 'pro' designer I've made the serious mistake of thinking nothing looks good unless it's done on a computer (and yes, at one point I even toyed with the idea of erasing the type and putting in computer fonts... eep!). It's taken a seemingly throwaway sketch like this to remind me of that fact.
Hmm, this construction lines thing does work for this kind of sketch, although I've omitted a lot of them on the characters themselves. I agree about the type though... they'd look a lot looser and emptier without the lines.
Thanks so much for the encouragement! I should do some more of these on a regular basis because they're a hell of a lot of fun.
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