I came across Vonster’s work a while ago, and realized his Keyboard Characters would make for a great “how-to” story. Little did I know when I contacted Vonster that he meticulously documents most of his creations. Not only does he talk about the process in detail, he documents it with photos. Vonster graciously let Brand Peel post his experience making his Keyboard Characters. Enjoy!

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By Von Glitschka / Illustrator & Designer
www.artbackwash.com
www.glitschka.com

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Illustrative Product
For a long time I’ve wanted to develop and create my own product and market it. Well that time has now come with the launch of ‘Keyboard Characters™’. For years I have taken my doodles and not wanting to forget about them or just to enjoy them before I archived them away in my files I would insert them into the back row of my keyboard so they could sit there and stare at me while I worked.One day I realized this would make a cool illustrative product and then wondered what name I should give them. A few moments passed and I said to myself ‘Keyboard Characters™’. Because I worked for Upper Deck for three years and have been a life long collector of various things I decided to create ‘Keyboard Characters™’ as a collectible limited edition art product.Over the past year I have worked out all the specific characters I’d do for the first set and have taken the time to get this idea trademarked and copyrighted. Below is a step by step tutorial taking you through the creation of one of the ‘Keyboard Characters™’ called ‘Riled Rover’.

Keyboard Character - Riled Rover / Total Time: Approx. 6.5hrs

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Thumbnail Sketches: Yes it’s old school methodology but if you get into the habit of skipping this stage of the creative process or just cut it short your work in the long run will suffer. Discipline yourself to draw out you concepts and ideas so you can explore and experiment various approaches to take on your project. Don’t worry about refinement or polishing these, they are merely very loose sketches to capture an inspired thought so you can then later determine if it’s worth developing further. This image shows a few of about ‘20′ I did.

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Refined Sketch: Sometimes when I work out a sketch it starts as a thumbnail and instead of re-drawing it by placing vellum over the top I’ll just continue to draw on-top of the thumbnail sketch and erase and redraw and repeat the process until I get what I am looking for. This was the case with this refined sketch. I also ran out of paper so I had to tape together another sheet to continue the refined sketch. I often do my sketches on small note pad paper so this tends to happen often for me. I don’t like drawing on regular size bond paper, it’s too much white space, having a smaller note pad for me is more approachable. This is something I discovered about myself a long time ago and more then likely you’ll discover the same type of creative quirks in your process and that is what will make your own process work more efficiently over time.

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Self ArtDirect: My first attempt at the dogs body looked like a mutant frog-dog. My own note shown in the image says it all. So that is why I taped the second sheet and drew a new body for my dog character. It’s important to be honest with yourself when you work, if something just doesn’t look right to you then don’t ignore it. Admit it and then refine and redraw until you get it to the point where you can look at it and it feels right. Don’t be afraid to show it to someone else (Preferably someone not familiar with what your working on) and ask them something like “Does anything look wrong to you?”. Their opinion shouldn’t be iron clad in terms of accepting the feedback but if it confirms your own critic of your art then odds are you should change it.Another thing to do is to set your sketch aside for a few hours then come back and approach it with fresh eyes. You’ll more then likely see things you should adjust. Be your own art director.

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Close Up: This shows the extent of my refinement. On most of my work I’d now draw it again with a tighter version but to be honest I was being lazy that day. This refined sketch however is tight enough to build my vector art from and leaves no guess work for that next step so I am not sacrificing quality. And that is what will determine if you should redraw it again tighter.

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Scans, blow-out and Final: I always scan in as ‘Grayscale’ instead of ‘Line Art’. I like adjusting the contrast manually in Photoshop so I can leave as much or as little noise for the final .tiff image I use to build from in my drawing program.

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Barking Vectors: Following the refined sketch I begin to build my core vector shapes. No color at this point just pure and simple shape building point by point.

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Following Refined Sketch: Close up showing how I follow the sketch almost dead on. Because on this project I didn’t redraw my refined sketch tighter you can see a few areas where I have deviated to improve the vector paths such as on the dog collar and his paw. Because this art wasn’t too complex this slight change mid-stream didn’t cost me any time but on a larger composition it might have bloated my creative process a bit so it’s important if you can figure out all these details in the analog sketch stage before moving to the computer.

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All Paths Built: All my vector paths are now complete. Including his little winky.

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Composing Color: When I work in this segmented style the first color I try to work out is the darkest one. In this case it’s the blue color. I have created several prefab color palettes I use on various projects and I load the one most appropriate for a given project. This first set of ‘Keyboard Characters™’ uses all the same color palette. When i develop the next set I’ll more then likely change the core color palette as well.

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Flat Color Established: All the color has now been balanced. The flat colors are ready for the detailing to be added which will really make the final art pop.

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Detail Building Done: At this point I am done with the artwork. All detail has now been added.

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Building In Detail: Subtle shading, highlights and minimal gradients (I am not a huge admirer of gradients) really helps the artwork come alive and adds a nice level of depth. It’s OK to experiment a little bit with the detailing and if it doesn’t look good just command ‘Z’. That is beauty of digital illustration, it allows for endless experimentation at each stage of the process without loosing any time to do so.

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Fleating Thought: Oops! I forgot the parasite detailing…the flea that is.

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Final Flea Bitten Mutt: The artwork for this ‘Keyboard Character™’ is now officially complete.

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Press sheet proof: About 90% of all my work is done once I finish my art and deliver it to Copy Craft. They usually handle all the production on their end and manage the project once I deliver the art. It’s all part of being a creative hired gun for other agencies and I prefer it this way. On this project however it was my own product I was producing so the process didn’t end with the finalization of the artwork. I now had to assure the art was produced accurately.This image shows the first press sheet for me to proof color accuracy on ‘5′ of the characters and the header card I’ll be using for the packaging. The press sheets were provided by Copy Craft for me to sign off on and what you see in the top right corner of the image is my own high-res color proof I had run out to compare them with.

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Press Sheet Proof CloseUp: The second press sheet shows ‘8′ other characters. All looked fine and I didn’t find any problems with the art or color.

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Die-Cut Proofs: A lower-resolution proof with front and back shows the exact die-cut placement and back one color black print alignment. Once I am done proofing all the various supplied press sheets I sign and return them to the print vendor to proceed with printing.

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Done: The final printed product in all it’s glory. All 900 of them delivered from the printer. The final package with all 10 characters included. The bags came from Uline.

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The whole set of 10 characters can be purchased from http://www.keyboard-characters.com. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have creating them.This whole project has been a labor of love for me and I if it inspires you to create your own unique projects yourself then this tutorial has been well worth the time. Enjoy.
Note: These tutorials are meant to help you discover, enhance and facilitate your own creative growth and skills. So don’t feel obligated to take my comments or examples as gospel. Use them as spring boards to explore, experiment and have fun developing your own creative process. That is how you’ll benefit most from these downloads.