Illustration Process

 

 

I've been asked again about my illustration process. I've posted a response on a Traveller Facebook group previously, but here it is again for the non-Facebook people. This illustration is of a starship bridge from the original Starship Geomorphs book.

I draw the geomorphs in AutoCAD, so most of the work starts there. I pick a geomorph I want to illustrate and build a 3D SketchUp model. I rotate views around the model and decide on the best angle. I export multiple JPG images from SketchUp (thin lines, thick lines, flat shading, and sometimes shadows) and composite them in Photoshop. SketchUp is not a good renderer, which why things look so flat, so a lot of Photoshop work is needed. Lighting and reflections are all faked in Photoshop. Anything organic (people, animals, etc.) are hand drawn in Photoshop - usually using a photographic reference. It's pretty time consuming, but I like the results. The image above shows everything step-by-step.

 I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.