FINAL ARTWORK & MOCKUPS

Here it is… my final work for Assignment 3! The kit consists of a drawstring bag, a bucket hat, 3 button badges and an activity book. You can view the full resolution mockup shots and final artwork in these pdfs here. *You can also click to enlarge the photos in this post for a clearer version, not sure why some of the pictures are blurred*

PROCESS

CHARACTER DESIGN

I wanted the trail to focus on teaching kids how to talk about sculptures. So, my concept was to create characters based on forms within sculptures to give the book more personality and make in more appealing to kids. The three forms that I came up with were the circle, curve and line. I started out by sketching out different variations of the characters. I tried to incorporate the shape itself into the various features of the characters, such as their noses or limbs.

I chose the fourth variation, as it was the one closest to my own style and I would be more comfortable drawing them this way. I also thought the distinct eyes and nose would help the characters look more like a cartoon-like. After, I cleaned up the sketches further in Procreate.

BADGES

After deciding on the final look of the characters, I wanted to give them a bit more personality. Each character has a different pose – the circle is a little more energetic, while the curve is more approachable, and the line is more polite. I kept this in mind when illustrating their designs for the badge.

 

I explored adding some text to the badges but since I made no mention of their names in the book, I thought I would just keep that consistent and I removed the text entirely, and I also felt that the illustration was more effective with just the pattern and the character. Here are the final designs for the other two characters:

ACTIVITY BOOK

SCULPTURES

For the illustrations of the sculptures, I wanted it to be accurate to how the sculpture looked in real life, and so I found reference photos of the sculpture and traced over them (first photo). I used two different brushes – one for the linework and one for shading. The linework has subtle texture and the one for shading creates a stippling effect, which I used only on the sculptures to give them more three-dimensionality (second photo).

For the illustrations of the artists, I used solely the linework brush and added shadow with cleaner lines. I mostly referenced photos I found online and drew them in more of a cartoonish style to fit the overall tone of the illustrations in the book.

SHAPES

To include the characters somewhere in the book, I added a little cloud for all them to sit on which would contain the words “Did You Know?”, which would be a fun fact about each sculpture included on every page.

I also used the shapes of the characters themselves as elements to fill up the background space. I use the same elements to create a pattern for the drawstring bag and bucket hat later on.

MAP

For the map, I plotted out the various points of the sculptures on Google Maps and then drew in the main roads and patches of green and blue. I didn’t make this the most representational drawing as I wanted it to be more of a rough overview for them to see where the sculptures were in relation to each other.

For the buildings, I used reference photos but tried to pick out the main structures and colours that were most pertinent to the architecture. Here is a time-lapse recording of the map illustration:

TYPE

While I was drawing the map, I decided to explore some hand-drawn type for various texts in the layout. I went with the last option which I thought was most legible, but still looked rounded and friendly. For the titles, I used a heavier line weight to create a clearer sense of hierarchy within the page (second image).

LAYOUT

I began by sketching out some layouts to figure out what the content would be and where it would go. The main things I wanted to include were the illustrations of the sculpture and the artist, a curve, line, circle question and an activity.

At first, I was working off the colours from my moodboard to select the colours for the various elements within the page, but after a consultation with Lisa, we agreed that there was too much going on. So, I decided to focus on 2 colours per spread, picked from the colours of the sculpture to make the design more cohesive.

 

COVER DESIGN

With the cover design, I wanted to give the characters some props like they were walking through the city. I still took note of their individual personalities at this point. My first draft is the image on the right below, but I felt that they were floating strangely on the page. Lisa suggested that I play with scale and overlapping objects to create more depth. 

   

I pulled the canvas up a little to make way a pavement, and then added the characters in front and behind the buildings, with the curve being slightly larger. Lastly I added a few bushes in the foreground to further add a sense of depth.

PATTERN

Using the shapes from the characters, I created a pattern tile in Photoshop, which I could use to fill bigger canvases after. I applied that onto an image of a bucket hat and a drawstring bag to mock it up.

 

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this project as I really enjoyed illustrating all the characters and sculptures! It was fun to piece them all together at the end and see them as a set. I’m really happy with how it turned out 🙂