The process of the Team Thursday images
Bi-weekly we post a "Team Thursday" on Instagram and we sporadically post a "Know Your Arekibian" on the blog, with an illustration of a member of staff and a short Q&A about that person. Rudson, one of Arekibo's designers creates the illustration and Jennie drafts up the questions and passes them onto each person. The illustrations are varied and very detailed. See below the process of the imagery, from Rudson's point of view.
The first thing I need to know to start a drawing is what the person's interests are. In this case here I’m going to show you the process of Gwen’s illustration, who just joined Arekibo recently.
One of the hardest things for me is drawing someone in a caricature way but this is not the case with these images. The drawings for the Team Thursday are more realistic.
So firstly, Jennie went to investigate what Gwen’s interest were and what she likes to do. I chose only two options from the list she supplied, which were the ocean and dolphins. Straight away the idea of the illustration came to my mind. It’s like magic. It’s fun.
Right after having the idea I start to search for images to reference the construction of the scene. In the case here, the ocean.
Here are some images I used for reference:
I start to draw using the images I searched to create the scene I have in mind.
As I didn’t have any images of Gwen (such as a headshot), I asked her if I could take a picture of her in the exact position I needed for the illustration and thankfully she was delighted to help.
I leave the images open on the computer screen for reference while I’m drawing on the iPad Pro 3rd generation. Now I start drawing the Arekibian.
First thing I do is sketch the positioning more or less of where everything will go. This is the first layer. Right after that I fade it a little bit and I start drawing another sketch over the first one. A more precise sketch of what will be.
Then I start to put life to it. Adding some colours, and I normally use the colours from the images I chose as reference to make things more realistic.
Now after adding the colour I need to define what texture I’d be using. In Team Thursday Images I use a more realistic texture. Normally I sketch with brushes and blur it for shadows and lights.
When I’m happy with the illustration I brighten it up. A few spots of lights to make it shine to the eyes.
And there you have it - Gwen's "Team Thursday" is complete. Once she answers the Q&A we post it on Instagram and we post a selection of the posts on our blog too.
Want to see some of our Team Thursdays / Know Your Arekibians? Have a look at Matt, Luke T and Darren or check out our instagram.