Author: Martijn Rijven
|| Language: Indonesian (Translated by Sonny Satria)
|| Format: .PDF
|| Pages: 7
|| Software: Adobe Illustrator CS3 and above
Reviews:
We recently interviewed Dutch illustrator and designer Martin Rijven about how to create a mascot for the Mozilla Firefox OS smartphone platform. This details the creative process for creating animals that embody specific human characteristics or ideas, to help you design flexible characters that can be used across client identities.
For this tutorial, Martijn explains how he will create an illustration of a mascot to serve as part of a larger branding concept for importers of African coffee and cocoa beans. He has made this painting, in his poses and demeanor with the intention of showing nobility, dignity, aspirations and accomplishments, but this must also be nimble and active.
First, he shows how he uses pencil and paper to explore different postures and styles to communicate the characteristics requested in the briefing. Martijn covers everything from attitude and facial expressions to coloring and styling. He then explains how he produces the artwork in Illustrator. Martijn creates them using layered vector shapes and the Pathfinder function - before coloring using semi-transparent gradients and blending modes.
This tutorial can help you develop characters that need to reflect certain human characteristics, and develop them in a way that will make them printable.
