My process for the illustration Propagate

By popular demand here is my process for the Propagate Illustration posted earlier this week.
My process is not always exactly the same. But I think that this post will give you a good idea of the way my illustration are created.

At first, when I receive the topic, I do some research about the word and all his variations. I search the word in the dictionary, read quotes with it, and try to find themes that fit with the word. While I'm doing this research, I sketch some ideas in my sketchbook. I do a lot of thumbnails with different ideas and different compositions. Here is one of the pages of my sketchbook.




Then I select the final idea and the final composition of my illustration and blow it up. I use this sketch as a base for the rest of the illustration because I want to keep the movement and composition that the small thumbnail has.


Then I do a lot of image research. I look in different books and websites for vintage images of birds, of eyes, of profile, etc. I then select and place the images on my sketch.

Once I'm satisfied with the look of the collage, I print the images on a bristol and take my micron and inks. I ink the every element that needs to be drawn. In this case, I rework the eyes, the wings, the body, the clouds, the beaks and the border.


I then scan the image and clean up everything. This is my final sketch.

Then, I take a moment to think about the colors, texture and overall feeling I want to give to the piece. For this illustration, I wanted a textured background, with lots of blues and colored birds.
For the background, I did a texture with acrylics and scanned it.


Then I put all the elements together and filled every element with the right color.

And voilà !
All done
I hope this post helps you have a better understanding of my illustration process.
Feel free to ask me any questions, you might have.