B I R T H   O F   A N   I L L U S T R A T I O N

After a preliminary meeting to discuss the illustration, Robaire begins with a few pencil sketches of his own to identify and organize the elements of the figure. Ah, you ask, since all our artwork will eventually be done on the Mac, why do we start with pencil and paper? Answer: Speed, freedom, and -- let's face it -- force of habit. Besides, it's best to have a clear idea where you're going when you begin to build art on the computer, and sketching is a quick way to get there. For instance, here's a preliminary approach to this illustration that uses the author's flowchart-like symbols:

Below is a later version that introduces more-representational components (for instance, the video source is a camera, not a rectangle). That's good, since boxes with labels don't communicate as well as recognizable objects from the real world. We can take this realism only so far, though, since we want to show the analog and digital waveforms, not shielded cables and a lot of clutter inside the computer. JUMP TO STEP 3

---

HOME	WELCOME	TOUR	PORTFOLIO	PEOPLE	FUNZONE

This page last updated on 10 January 2000.

e-mail: ideas@sonic.net

---