So, I have not posted in a long-time and I think it is high time I did. This is a new illustration for a challenge to do a design for the word "School." I wanted to do something with Old School but I was not sure which direction to use. I went with the concept of Old School Hip Hop Dinosaurs at the suggestion of a friend Tiffany Ambrose. Old School Hip Hop is really awesome and so are Dinosaurs, so how could I lose. The picture below is the final piece and the process follows.
Click on image to see bigger version.
First, I started with a basic sketch for composition and to get the idea on paper (below).
After finding some Hip Hop references (Ice T, Run DMC, LL Cool J) and Dinosaur images, I did a pencil drawing which then I scanned into the computer. Notice how I drew the background figures on a separate piece of paper. I did this because when I draw overlapping figures together I tend to get unintended line interactions that are hard to fix later in the process. In this case, I was also not sure whether I wanted to use a Stegosaurus or a Triceratops. Also notice the drawing is half only half inked in this image. I inked it with a wacom tablet using a 16 inch wide canvas at 400 dpi; I make it overly large so my lines will look better when the art is scaled to it's correct size.
I decided to go with Stegosaurus in the end. I really like the Triceratops by itself, but compositionally the Stegosaurus made more sense. Below is the fully inked art.
The next step was to add texture. Since this is limited color design (White, Red, Gold, Green and Black on Gray) I saved each color on a separate layer in PhotoShop. This was so I could easily adjust colors as needed. Below is a close-up of the final artwork.
It is scoring at Threadless.com, although I am not sure if it is printable. If you want support it please follow the link.
Thanks for looking.
