Poster Illustration Process
By:
Mitch Wiesen
on 4/7/2020
Materials:
I keep it pretty simple. Tracing paper, Sketchbook paper, pencils, Sakura Pigma Micron pens in sizes 005, 01, 03, and 05, and two Sakura Pigma Brush pens.
Research:
Before I begin an illustration, I almost always find a ton of reference photos. I start by poking around Pinterest and Flickr looking for vintage copyright-free photos and illustrations in the theme I’m looking for. My latest Illustration a Valentine’s Day-themed poster for the Great VIA Speling Bee. I knew I was going to deep dive into some really cute vintage valentines cards, like these:
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/5545816447d7676688caa65f361cdc9b0b37dbe5-1600x724.png?q=75&auto=format)
I loved the cute animal cards, but I was especially drawn to the cowboy valentines so I found a few more.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/e3b052a2cf9eccca22d23ae926380cdd47e8ca4b-1600x1081.png?q=75&auto=format)
At this point, I had a clear image in my head of two cowboy kiddos riding on a heart-spotted horse with some kewpie babies dancing around them. I dug a little deeper and ended up with some vintage illustrations that were so perfect I used them as direct references.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/c0e6464fe2872c94d982872ca491fc1578c9fa79-1600x686.png?q=75&auto=format)
Art Phase I:
The first art phase is all done completely by hand. I collage together my sketches and my direct references, draw on top of them with pencil, and then pen, and then I have a piece of crinkled up tracing paper ready to scan.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/a0805d954a852852d13c427b47cb0d063d87bf8b-1600x748.png?q=75&auto=format)
Art Phase II:
The second phase is all digital. I make slight alterations to the drawing (Cleaning up ink smudges, moving elements around to slightly alter the composition, etc.), I color it, and then I add texture. Let’s start with the scan:
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/6143b572c008cee2eb69e4f15db0c940cfbfeb47-3272x1892.png?q=75&auto=format)
Here is my artwork after I cleaned it up and played with the curves and levels to get it nice and crisp.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/bd74e65d910642e0906aa0fbeec95075f904f1f4-3270x1892.png?q=75&auto=format)
Next, I isolated the black using Select > Color Range and deleted the white background.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/6e7cdc99287182e93caad2f0591b709c9e343829-1836x748.png?q=75&auto=format)
Then I pasted the black artwork in a new file, colorized it, and started playing with different background colors. I went with the first one so I could build more pink tones on top of it.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/68e98461ae63ed98afc856c81a15002679f5a503-2093x2560.jpg?q=75&auto=format)
I selectively colored the illustration with two more colors. I always try to use one “paper color” and no more than three “print colors” to mimic the vintage printing processes I’m being inspired by.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/611f5073e526fc6187b5b5e53d4e8981b43247cf-2093x2560.jpg?q=75&auto=format)
The last step is texture. I always use something like this, either one that I made myself or something I find for free online, and I select > color range and choose either white or black, and with that selected, I delete the selection from the color layers I just painted, so it looks like this:
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/e126ab1e23523e75cb0e5b7c366b8e541e6f87ca-2093x2560.jpg?q=75&auto=format)
I’ll also take this time to make the color layers slightly off register, and I’ll play with their hue/saturation a bit too. I felt like this poster needed a little differentiation between foreground and background, so I added in another layer of color:
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/7987e03f76df64cbcc2d2fc607cf9bd84f07debf-2093x2560.jpg?q=75&auto=format)
And that’s it! Illustration complete. All in all, it took about 10 hours. Here are a few close-ups to really see that texture:
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/ff407cea2388b647b27d8befd2768a33ee5c9a97-2502x1618.png?q=75&auto=format)
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/0m66vvkr/production/e811a087163e233430d7cf0995ed10f1742498e3-1416x1230.png?q=75&auto=format)
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