Folks often ask exactly how I work, so I thought I'd share a little of my methods with
anyone who cares to look on for a minute or two.

In this particular case I am working on a logo for a camp for disabled children.
The client wanted a superhero pose based on her son, who the camp will be named
after. "Flying Z Ranch". Since the art and type have to work together I used a lot
of computer assist in the preliminary stages. I don't always do this, but pretty often
my work will follow similar lines.

First step: Pencils. In this case, I created a figure in Poser ® 4 ( a helpful program that I
often use rather than the expense of hiring a model ) and imported the pose into
Photoshop ® where I designed the type. I needed to make sure the figure and type
worked together. The challenge here was to make the figure look like the actual person
while still giving it that "heroic" look that the client wanted.

Second step: Inks. After the client approved my pencil rough, I made a photocopy
of the pencils ( to darken them slightly, depending on the needs of the piece, I may also
enlarge or reduce the artwork at this stage ) and taped this copy to the back of a piece
of series 500 Strathmore Bristol Board ( by far my preferred medium for ink work ).
Then I began redrawing the outlines of the figure in ink ( Koh-i-noor Universal ink ),
taking care to make pleasing curves in those outlines. I also outlined the areas that I
would be filling in with a brush later, and indicated those areas to be filled in with an "x".

Third step: "Spotting" in black areas. I switched light sources from the light table to the
drawing lamp I keep on my right and with a brush ( a #6 watercolor brush is my
favorite ) I began filling in the areas that I had previously indicated with an "x". At this
point I probably ad-libbed a little with the black areas. I often do this unconsciously, finding
an area that needs more dark than I had previously thought. So I add a little black ink
here and there, unexpectedly.

Fourth step: After making sure that I had a good clean outline around the figure,
and double checking to make sure all the black areas were filled in properly, I took
the art across the room to my scanner and placed it on the scanner bed. Since this
piece was going to be used for various purposes by the client, I needed to put it
into as many computer formats as possible, plus I needed to add the type that I'd
previously designed in Photoshop ®.

Final step: Using the trusty iMac, I flattened the final logo artwork saved it as
various TIFFs, GIFs, JPEGS, in both Mac and PC versions, so the client would
be able to take the CD-ROM I burned and use the artwork at printers, for webpages
and in e-mails with no problem.

And here's the final logo. A good cause, a chance to do something where somebody
wears a cape...it was fun all around!

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