How Detailed Are My Thumbnail Sketches?

I've been asked before how detailed my thumbnail drawing are since all artists do them differently in terms of how much detail or work is put into them. Mine are pretty loose and rugged and if anyone looked at them at this stage I doubt that they'd know what was going on. Thumbnails are really just for the artist anyway to work out his thoughts and not for other to normally see and you save a lot of drawing time by doing them and working out your layouts and trying to get the best one. Above are some thumbnails that I think the casual observer can get the layout and the dynamics I was shooting for in this P and F comic especially with the first page and the last page. They are about 3 inches high and an inch and a half wide and drawn with a ball point pen. They vary usually and are not exact and sometimes I draw them right on the script in some dead area of the page. Remember that I'm just trying to work out the dynamics of it and where word balloons will go. 

These are RGB scans of my final roughs as I had to work out how the magic pens would work since they had to be done separately and in another media so that they'd translate as "magical". They were done separately and digitally in the end. Hope you like this look into the process!

Some Props...

Here's some props I did for Bratz back in 2004. A lot of the work was almost like doing an animated cel with the character art being on a separate layer from the background so you could create different layouts. Above is a full background plate and the prop was a set of lockers that was for a high school hallway. I did everything separately and so you could take the lockers off and just have the hallway. Then I could add a clock or some other high school themed prop I would then create to redress it. I've done a lot of my professional work in this nature to get more out of a background. I normally don't want to spend a lot of time working on a background only to just use it once and then move on. In some cases, you can reuse them, or just use the perspective of the background and build something new.

Here's the original rough I did of the lockers. I originally did only three and then added two more to make it more of a wall of lockers. When I did the original color file of the locker art, I kept the original three lockers on one layer and the added two on another. I also left it open to go back in and change the colors at some point if I wanted or needed to. Also, all this work was done in Photoshop with the pen tool. Not sure why I didn't do it in Illustrator at the time but nowadays I probably would build it there and then add the color enhancements in Photoshop. Now once I settled on the look I wanted, I save the file in layers and then flatten the locker art and drag it over to the main background file where I compile all the different elements into one final piece. All my Strawberry Shortcake art was done this was since the character art alone could be around 20-25 layers in Illustrator, and that was just one character!

This I thought I would add as a little extra to this post. I had to create a soda can for the lunch room tables in the high school cafeteria backgrounds. I also created brown paper lunch bags, chairs, lunch trays, etc to make the lunch room seemed "lived in". I was and am quite proud of my little soda can. I had this done in about 15 minutes or so and then just copied and pasted a bunch to add throughout the scene. This is fairly big though as they were maybe a 1/4-inch to a 1/2-inch in the final piece. But again, it's a prop that is built and I could reuse again.

And Some Graphic Design This Week As Well...

Since the economy is still chugging along slow, I've been doing some graphic design as well. Below are three concert banners that I did earlier this week and they'll be 7 feet wide by 3 feet high when they are printed. I did one banner each for Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, and Zac Brown. They were made for WYNK radio for some concert thing that Clear Channel is doing. The basic idea is that fans will sign these banners and then the radio station will give each banner with all the signatures to each country star as a token gift from the fans, hence, why there's plenty of open space around them for signatures. The hard part was separating the characters from the backgrounds in their original photos and creating crisp edges. It takes some time to do it right and I think they came out pretty cool in the end. The Kenny Chesney one also had a small mic on his shirt collar and so I had to digitally paint that out as well. I sent the files to Vivid Ink who did the printing job on them and so I had to add their logo to the bottom as a final touch.  

And right after that I did a business card design and two ads for Rima Akoum at Mai Mira Salon in Baton Rouge. The first ad I did was in black and white for some charity publication and then I did this full color one that will run in City Social Magazine. It's a half page ad and took me a little time to figure it out since I was given the five smaller pics to work into the design that weren't in the black and white ad. I kept the background white since from the specs I was given there was no bleed and I though that it would look better with a bit of separation to it instead of adding a solid color in background which would box it more. I'm happy with how it turned out as it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle to get it to work. It's just like the previous post with Phineas and Ferb, you have to have all these elements in a drawing and make them work. Design is 95% of the job no matter what I'm working on.

LANESCAN Tri-Fold Brochure Design

Here is a tri-fold brochure I did for ARCM Corp. back in September of 2003. There was a lot of information to tell and only so much space to do it in as the client wanted the mailing card added to it as well at the bottom. I think it's one of my best design jobs and one where the art and text all worked together. It's like a puzzle most of the time trying to get the pieces to fit. Art was all done in Adobe Illustrator and then assembled and laid out in Photoshop. The art of the cars, trucks and roads were done as vector art since the client needed the art also blown up to trade show banner size as well. The backside of the brochure is a little bland since it's a mailer but I'm still happy with how it all came out. I did a bunch of stuff for the company that year before it was sold to another company who then took it over.

The DINING & ENTERTAINMENT Magazine Logo & Planning With Thumbnails

When I found the Family Values logo sketches I also found thumbnails for the other magazine I had to edit/design called Dining & Entertainment Magazine. These thumbnails I did after I had designed the final logo and then had to work up some designs for a letterhead and business card. The two sketches on the second piece of scrap paper were for interior story layouts as I wanted to get an idea of how the text, headers, pull quotes and pictures would look as a whole. Even from these simply sketches you can get a clear idea of what I was going for at the time though they would change over the years I did them.

Here is the black and white version of the logo (for letterheads) and then the color version...

I added the color bar behind it to make it pop more as we always kept the text white as it always popped more as white than as another color. The color bar color itself was changed though every month depending on what we were doing. Below is one of my favorite covers I did and it was jam-packed with a lots of interviews that I did for that month, which was great since I really got to play with the design and layout of each interview as well as the cover. I try to give my covers room to breathe as well. Some magazines jam way too much text onto them and it makes them harder to 'read' at a certain distance.

BONUS: Here's a mock up cover with the super rare logo that only last two issues before we changed it. This was the second issue I worked on and this was the last time we used this logo. It was actually the first logo that I designed though and I really liked it as it had some tooth to it and looked like a steel-cut piece of metal and it had some energy to it. I went this way as originally we were shooting for a young and hip demo but that would change. Maxim was hot at the time and a lot of publications were trying to mimic the look. I got the idea from watching old episodes of Dragnet 1967 where after the credits ran at the end of the show there was a hand that came down and pounded out the Mark VII or something in the steel with a hammer. It stuck with me and so I thought a steel look would work well. 

Looking at it again after all this time, it's hard for me to call it a failure though. While everyone in the office liked it, it became somewhat of a designer's nightmare for me as it limited me in terms of the space I had to layout a cover. I had to run the photo flush left all the time to make it work and most press release photos simply weren't shot with enough bleed and it would have been a hassle each month to have to separate the person from the background and put a new background behind them that would fit. It was easier to simply run the logo straight across the top and then have a full square below it in which to play within. As the cover above shows, even by moving the logo down a 1/3 I still had some decent ratios to play within.

Hope you found this post interesting!

FAMILY VALUES Magazine Logo - Original Concept Sketches Found!

While cleaning out the studio I found my original layout sketches for the Family Values magazine logo that I created back in 2002 when I was hired to be editor/designer. The publisher had wanted to come up with something new for a look and he wanted a new logo as well. Above are the sketches I did with a ballpoint pen on some scrap paper. I did some other designs as well (but this one struck me as working well with the area that it would have to occupy on the cover and I liked it best) and then played with this one to get it to the next level.

Here's the final logo that I did in Illustrator as I wanted it to be vector art in case they ever wanted to make it bigger for something like a banner. I used these colors for the first two issues as they complimented the photos and text but then I would change out the colors to compliment the overall color theory or even to celebrate a certain holiday or seasonal theme. It also works well as a black and white image and could be easily converted if need be. I usually always design a logo with the idea that it must work in black and white first. Scott's Rule: If it works in black and white, it will work in color.

Here's a November cover for Thanksgiving where I changed it up so you have an idea of how it looked. The month before I changed it to black and orange for Halloween and it popped really well off the cover. It was kind of cool to find those original sketches still laying around here. Usually I don't save that stuff as thumbnails are mostly for the artist as a guide, but I have been saving more of it lately as scans just so I have them.

A Piece Of Digital Notebook Paper... Who'da Thunk It?!

Here's an interesting thing I found on my hard drive that I created back in 2003...a blank piece of notebook paper. Seems weird that you'd have to create something like that but I was doing a cover and art spread for Family Values Magazine for an article about safe schools for the August issue and I needed to create some props for the cover and for the main story interior spread where text would lay on top of it to give it a school time feeling. So I created a digital composition book cover since I didn't have one to scan and then I scanned some actual pens, pencils, erasers, and a ruler I had lying here so that I could use them in my design. I could have created those digitally but it would have taken time that I just didn't have. I remember scanning a piece of actual notebook paper and finding that it just didn't 'hold up' for actual use as the blue lines were so light and washed out. Even trying to save time and play with the levels in Photoshop was a waste of time so I created a sheet of digital notebook paper using the scanned page a guide. I kept the holes black for this look but I can pop those out and you'd be able to see through them if this page was laying on a table as you can see below from the final printed art.

This was some of my best design work at the time and somehow it really came together during the rush of the deadline to get it done. This is the two-page spread as I just wanted to give you an idea of how it was actually used. Even the wood table was digitally created as well. I haven't had a chance to use the notebook paper for anything else since though but I have the file so I have it in case I do. It might look good as a backdrop for some sketches as well to create a sketchbook feel. Anyway, I hope you all like this mini 'behind the scenes' process post!

HAL & AL "ALL-STAR CONCERT" Poster!

Since I posted the cover with Hal & Al on the new issue of City Social advertising the concert, I thought I should post the actual concert poster ad!

HAL & AL On The New Cover Of CITY SOCIAL Magazine!

Hal & Al are on the new cover of City Social magazine this month advertising the Hal & Al All-Star Concert this fall! Saints quarterback Drew Brees will be there as a special guest as well! I had to go back into the photo and add the flesh tone to the Hal & Al costumes for it. From previous posts, I've talked about the steps that I have to do to fix any photos of them since cameras always make them look more white than flesh color. The flash on the camera and the lighting setups keep whiting them out even in the most professional of photoshoot conditions. There are always touch ups to do afterwards. This was fairly easy work as opposed to last year's free CD cover art (posted here last year), which required a lot of work done to it. This cover is a great shot though!

BEST CONSUMER CONTRACTORS - Graphic Design Work

Joe Valentino from Valentino's Beautiful Home Center wanted to form a group for contractors who could network and find new work as a unit instead of as separate contractors. So the first thing I had to come up with was a logo design for the group.

He liked the ribbon design best, but here is another version that didn't get used. I thought I'd post it for people who like to see the process...

Here's some alternate ideas that I was thinking of while trying to keep a simpler corporate look.

Here's yet another logo with just text that locks together. We liked it and decided to use it for some things and you'll see it on the tri-folded brochure.

Here is the design for the group's letterhead... we kept it simple.

Then the art for a No. 10 envelope...

Here's the final design for a tri-folded brochure mailer... I like the design a lot and wanted to add some punch to it so that it would grab you. All the text was given by the client as to what they wanted to say so it was just a job or organizing it all and making it pop...

And here's the inside of the brochure. I like this design a lot as well and the way it grabs your eye! It came out great! It has the feel of a mission statment or a diploma with the border and logos working together.

Then finally, the client wanted a simple two-folded informational brochure that could be printed quick at a local printer as a teaser while the one above was printed on high gloss paper stock at the high-end printer in California that we use normally for everything else. I like the cover of it and how it grabs your eye. It should always attract the eye from a few feet away. If no one picks it up, it's a bad design in my eyes.

VALENTINO'S BEAUTIFUL HOME CENTER - Graphic Design Work

Here's a bunch of design work I did for Valentino's Beautiful Home Center! Starts with a business card design and then a letterhead.

Then a flyer for the grand opening...

Then a coupon/ad for them. I like this one as a design since if you cut the coupon and the picture off, the right side of the ad still works, which makes it a good layout.

Then they wanted a two-sided letterhead flyer to advertise what services they offer. I had to add to the illustration as it was just a house before and then wanted to have a commercial type of business building next to it. I think it came out great and the colors really pop! The illustration was all done in Adobe Illustrator as well. The rest was done in Photoshop.

And then I did a little two-sided mini-flyer that could be inserted into something like a brochure.

Business Card Designs For Small Businesses

Here's some business card designs I did about last year for some small business ventures.

INVENTOR TO INVENTOR Logo

Some logo designs for a new service... I liked the color one for the sense of fun that it has, but the client liked the first black and white one.