For those of you who joined me for my first Video Hangout on May 31st link this piece will look familiar, and I'm really very stoked about this project. The commission was for Skeeterhawk :iconskeeterhawk: and the character's name is Jackie and she is a Kit Fox, and this image is going to be printed as vinyl wrap that will go on the tail of an aircraft that is also called a Kitfox link.
Because the illustration would actually be going on the tail of an aircraft, there was whole series of questions that had to be answered. Where on the aircraft would the art be applied? What were the dimensions, live area, I had to compose the illustration in? What method of printing would the company use to create the vinyl graphics, could they do subtle shading and could they do complex outline cuts? Finally since this image would be displayed at large public events I wanted to make certain that the subject matter would be acceptable for all age groups.
After some discussion with the client we decided on dressing the character as an iconic barnstormer from the 1920's and 30's would not only capture the spirit of the character but also the style of aircraft the client was building. So several development sketches were created and various poses proposed. FYI. the little plane flying alongside Jackie is a somewhat chibi version of what the client's plane looks like. Also I thought having the character running with her arms spread out like the wings of the plane gave the illustration a certain whimsical quality.
Now to make certain that this pose would fit on tail fin of the aircraft I had the client careful measure the size of the fin and then factoring in the tapered front edge of the fin and the location of various control surfaces and moving parts we determined what the actual live area of the fin was. I then cut a piece of corrugated cardboard which recreated those dimensions. I then did a drawing on tracing paper and then had my wife scan the image. I took the image to Kinko's and had them enlarge image a bit more since I had determined during the layout stage that I had a bit more room. They printed the image out on one of their large format xerox machine and then I transferred the image to a piece of Strathmore 500 Series 3ply vellum finish Bristol Board. I proceeded to use my usually combination of colored pencil, marker, technical pen, and gouache to finish it. The image was done on a 16"x20" working surface.
I hope you like what you see. Please help make more art like this possible by supporting me at Patreon.
I call him... "Richard".