Well as you know its been a looooong time since we've had a Creative Insight! But this week the lovely work of Phil Howell. So sit back, relax, grab a brew and enjoy!
This is my desk space, I work surrounded by objects and media, books and vinyl!
I work on a haggard old macbook which is falling apart and use Adobe illustrator and photoshop for my work, where my work differs from most other illustrators is that I don't start off with a sketch that I scan in and trace over in illustrator. I tend to research my theme and draw straight in to illustrator, the other thing I do a little different is I don't use a tablet I draw using the mouse and the pen tool. That is all. I start of creating basic shapes and creating the frame of my image.
I then add the face and hair details.
My work has a retro feel to it and before moving to computers I illustrated by cutting out and layering paper, I try to use the software in actually the same way, I also use a very limited colour palette.
Here I have completed a full basic figure the next step is to add details the great thing about illustrator is I can change everything as I go along and keep changing until its right and the image has a natural balance.
Now I use layers to add props to the scene and add life to the image.
The final step is to add text to the illustration, I have used song lyrics for this image. I have 1000's of typefaces as type is one of my real passions, I use reference books and images to make sure my typography is fitting to the retro subject matter and the 50's/60's era.
I then use layer blends to change the colour way of the image, this is my favourite feature of illustrator its so easy to create single colour illustrations. I also blend a pastel layer over the top to soften the image.
My final stage is to open the image in photoshop and use a brush to distress the illustration, I do this in a new layer and play with the opacity until I'm happy, this gives the illustration some texture and also makes it feel a little bit more real, like its a found object from the time period.
Thank you Phil!
Take a look at Phil's links!
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