May the Fourth Be With You

Happy Fourth of September.

This is an illustration I finished this past July for both ISM:10 (celebrating ISM Gallery's 10-year anniversary) in Fullerton, CA, and San Diego Comic-Con International 2012. 

I have included a couple of process shots to show how this one evolved.

(1) Super rough comp completed in Photoshop over an even rougher pen sketch:

(2) Cleaned up line art. I really do a lot of my designing at this point, making sure all the volumes and forms read clear. For me, when using line art it is really important to control your line quality and weight as well as ensuring that the overlapping forms are not confusing.

(3) Final Color (refer to the image at the beginning of this post). Excuse the cheesy 1-2-and-done steps. For this one I didn't save any layers but next time I'll make sure to show a better step by step for you all. 

Thanks again for looking and....May the fourth be with you!

Inspiration

To get inspired there are days where you have to empty your head of everything and find that place where you can create without restrictions. That can be an actual place or just a state of mind. Whatever works for you just remember that sometimes changing your physical environment will free you up and open the floodgates of ideas. As a creative person I try and do this at least once a week. Our brain can only take so much, give it a recharge every once in a while and you will be surprised at the results.