Illustration: Sketches to Vectors

  • By
  • On 10th February 2014

Wilkinson Brothers Illustration

We’re a little old-school when it comes to illustration. At least we are in the beginning stages, starting with a pencil and paper to record our initial thoughts. Then, we refine the sketches, or ‘tighten them up’, to show the client what we envision for the final rendering. Here are some samples of how a tight pencil sketch goes from paper to production. You can see how closely we use the scanned drawing to produce final vector illustrations.

Wilkinson Brothers Illustration

vector example in preview mode

The dictionary says a “vector” determines the position of one point in space relative to another. We assign thousands of these little points. That’s what each of the colored dots are above. We click and bend the little points to our liking to create a scalable computer rendering in AdobeIllustrator. This allows us to enlarge or reduce the size of our art without losing its integrity (like a photo does when resized).

sketch to vector motorcycle illustration wilkinson_brothers

sketch to vector by wilkinson brotherssketch to vector by wilkinson bros

sketch to vector logo by wilkinson brothers

sketch to vector character by wilkinson brothers

Below is an example of how you can see our vector framework when peeling back the final colored rendering. If we needed to, we could grab each one of those little points and move ’em around.

vector example in preview mode and final color

Of course, while we dig the computer and all its wonder, we love to start our creations with a good ol’ wooden graphite-filled stick and an inviting piece of white paper. It just feels right. Take a spin through our illustration portfolio to see more of our vector work.