Tips + Techniques: The Cat's Meow...

Most of the twenty years Rose Cassano has been illustrating she has been working with traditional (non-computer) illustration. Years ago she worked for Time Life Books rendering how-to scenarios and still favors beginning by drawing concept sketches in pencil. She tries to keep her scanned sketches spontaneous and not have the artwork feel like it is digitally rendered. She's completed an array of assignments over the years: book covers, logos, editorial art, and most recently she has been creating a lot of Web art — mainly icons for Web sites. Cassano said that this assignment, however, was unusual. The challenge of illustrating a character for a client's Web site was fun — something she doesn't often do. It is based on a character the client created complete with stories, snapshots and eventually animation. You can view the finished product at www.mokiethecat.com.

Cassano always starts with a pencil sketch. First she scans it into Photoshop, and saves it as a Pict file. Then she opens the scan in Illustrator (her primary program for rendering), where it will serve as a template to draw over. Using the Layers palette option, Cassano labels the pencil sketch as its own layer and lightens the value of it by clicking the template box, which makes it easy to see.

Using the Pen tool, Cassano draws a wire framework over the scanned template which she will color and bring to life. By using the View menu (or Command > Y), Cassano can alternately see the template or remove it from view to get an idea of how the art is looking. In the Layers palette, by clicking on the eye in the template layer, she can also remove the art from view.

After dropping in the color for the main art, she uses the Gradients feature in Illustrator to create a background glow behind the art by moving the small arrows below the gradient bar to add her colors. The final color on the bar should be the background color.

About the Artist: Artwork was created by Rose Cassano Web site: www.rosecassano.com Software used: Adobe Illustrator

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