Pre-Final Illustration

I was really inspired by John Holcrofts way of portraying an idea across to an audience and also his style of work, which influenced me within this final peice of work.

I first opened up an Illustrator document and altered the canvas size to fit the purpose of my illustration or roughly what I thought it should look like.

I then set out some guide lines to help coordinate my work, so it was kept symmetrical and aligned.

I then also utilised a grid option to help me craft letters using the 'pen tool' within illustrator. I also used the pen tool to create the box around the inside of the box. Whilst within Illustrator I was also using a Wacom Tablet, which eased the use of the pen tool and allowed easy control over the pencil tool as well when I needed it later in the project.

So following the line of my drafting I decided to select a clocking in machine and recreate it. I did this by choosing an image I though would be suitable for the purpose and then began to draw it on photoshop freehand.

I opened a photoshop document, placing the clock image on the background of my desktop and then,  using the paintbrush tool, began to draw out the outline and main shading of the clock.

After completing the outline and shading of the clock, I placed it into an illustrator document and then began to add in tone using the pen tool, creating separate layers for the different sections of the piece. I often exchanged between both the pen and pencil tool, as certain sections were easier for the other tool to complete.

The numbers within the clock is an example of how I used pencil tool to great effect, with it being easy to replicate the clock. I also utilised the 'exclude' tool by going onto the 'pathfinder' option. This allowed for me to leave the inner sections of some numbers 'empty', so it would see the colour of the background.

I then decide to add some texture to the piece by drawing out separate sections of dots, and then duplicating them across the whole green part of the clocks surface.

I then began to alter the colour schemes I used on the rest of the piece, to try and coordinate it all together.

Here are some different themes I trailed out in my work.

I then also altered the sizing of the text to trail whether it would look more appealing to the audience with more contract within itself.

After coming to a final simple colour scheme and text sizing I decided that the limitation of keeping it in a 'letter learning' format just wasn't allowing for the potential of the epic to be reached. I couldn't over edit the format as its too restricted by its specific purpose, as its created to help a child learn the alphabet with a simple to appeal to young audience and not to overly draw attention to itself. This is how and why I decided to further develop an idea involving the clocking in machine, instead of continuing this style illustration, as I didn't think the message I was trying to portray was easily detectable.