I often get asked by friends, fans and potential clients, about my creative process and how I achieve the final look of my illustrations. Therefore I decided to dedicate a section of my website to illustrate my creative process.

1. Initial discussion & concepts

Normally I get contacted by potential clients over the phone or email for illustration design. Our first conversation is usually very brief to establish weather I am available to deliver (normally in a few days) & to discuss the work involved. After confirming our discussions, the budget and the delivery date, I outline a few rough concepts (sketches). The sketches are quick ideas for designs which I approve with the art directors before moving forward.

Bellow are a few sample ideas & sketches I provide to clients:

2. The finished sketch

Once the initial sketches are reviewed by the client & they agree on one to develop further, I proceed by finalizing the sketch based upon the chosen layout/idea. At times there are changes & I encourage clients to confirm changes at this stage, as it's more difficult to make changes once the final artwork is done.

Bellow is an example of the final sketch:

3. Computer rendering of the artwork

Almost all my artwork is rendered & finalized on the computer in Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop. The process involves scanning & importing the final sketch into Adobe Illustrator & then layer further artwork on top of it. The process is very much like painting and drawing the traditional way - where the artist needs to layer colors, patterns, shading & other effects.

Bellow are screenshots of my workspace in Adobe Illustrator:

4. The final artwork

Depending on the artwork it's common that I bring the finished Adobe Illustrator artwork into Photoshop for additional color and texture improvements. Then I check the final artwork & prepare a high-resolution file for the client. The print-ready files sent to the client via email (using a compression utility) or if the client wishes I upload the necessary files directly to their server.

5. It's done!

Of course I want all my clients to be 100% happy & satisfied with my services. Sometime there are last minute changes & I do my best to figure out how to incorporate these changes into the artwork. If changes cannot be made without re-doing the artwork I am careful to explain the situation & what is possible so that everyone is happy. At the end I hope to produce artwork that my clients find useful & deliver the final product again. At this stage I also send an invoice and thank-you email and wait anxiously to see the work published.