Oregon Asian Celebration Poster, 2010

Computers and Markers working together
I wanted to share a recent illustration project with you so you can see part of my process. This was a poster I designed for the Oregon Asian Celebration which is held each year in February. This year I was out of town so I could not attend the event, but I still wanted to share what I made for it. For the last 5 years I have designed their posters and each year I use Copic in some aspect. (You can see last-year's poster design notes here).

This year I made my illustration more digitally than in years past, but I still want to show you how I started with Copics.

For this first picture you see, I drew the pagoda in the background, and scanned it in. I showed it to the client and they loved the image, then they told me what else they wanted to see in the picture.

Their theme this year was "Reflections on 25 years" as it was their 25th anniversary of the event. They wanted the moon reflecting in the water along with a turtle on a rock, some cranes, and other symbolic images.

So I drew the turtle and cranes as separate images and scanned them in. Using Photoshop I arranged them how I wanted them to look and made the pagoda gray instead of black, so the cranes and turtle would stand out more. I printed these onto color laser copier paper and colored them in very lightly.

This image looks great, but I knew the final picture was to be at night. By getting my basic shading in at this point I knew that I could always darken it on the computer. I also left the water and sky uncolored, as I was not sure how much shading or light I wanted to do, so I left it as areas to color on the computer.


Here is the final computer colored version. You can still see hints of my basic coloring. By using Photoshop I was able to darken the whole image, add in my water and background without worrying about making mistakes, and pull the whole thing together.

As you can see, I use both the markers and the computer when I need to. Neither one is better, as they are both tools and I use each one for it's strengths. I hope this gives you some ideas. Have a great weekend! I'll have updates on certifications tomorrow.