Jul 23
My illustration theme for Scrapblog
2007 at 10.28 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Today it’s time to share my experience on a fun project I’ve been working on. I’m talking about the illustration theme I’ve created for a Flex-based web application called Scrapblog. For those who don’t know Scrapblog yet, it’s a way to create multimedia scrapbooks of your photos, videos, audio and text. Ideal for people who want to share photos and videos with family and friends in a fun way. It’s really cool to play with, so check it out!
The job description
Months ago Mike Gowen from Scrapblog contacted me to ask me if I was interested in designing a Scrapblog theme in the same style as the header illustration on my blog. One theme consists of 3 to 5 backgrounds, patterns, photo frames, stickers and sample pages. Everything needed to be vector-based and scalable.
The theme, the inspiration
They gave me the freedom to pick a subject I like, but it was obvious that I would go for a 'girl' theme. I was thinking about designing a theme for a girl or woman who is traveling to cities all over the world. She is a busy girl with a tight schedule. Her travels are often related to her work etc. So I decided to create backgrounds of city skylines starting with Paris, New York and a generic city skyline doing a day and night version of each. Scrapblog decided to give this theme the title 'Girl On The Go' which I think suits perfectly.
Recognize anybody here? :D
The stickers
If you have checked out Scrapblog, you'll see that the so called stickers are crucial elements to dress up your pages. My stickers consist mostly of girls in different poses, outfits and activities or action. Most of the work went into drawing these girls. Other stickers were trees, benches, lanterns, light beams, sun, moon, stars and clouds.
Some of the process revealed
For those who wonder about the process of this illustration work. There wasn't much sketching involved. I only sketched parts of an illustration that I had trouble with. These were mostly hands. What I usually do is taking a picture of my hands in the correct position and use that as a source. Further then that I use images from Google as my main source for the city skylines and such. I try to mix them with a bit of my own interpretation and fantasy.
Follow up work
The current implemented theme shows only part of what I created so far. I've been designing more backgrounds of other places: Brussels (how could I not do one of my own country), London, Rome, Cairo/Egypt, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Agra/India and Tokyo. I've also created another set of stickers and a set of avatars. As far as I know these haven't been implemented yet. Thought I show you a sneak peak:
Scrapblog at BlogHer Conference '70
If you are planning on going to BlogHer (Chicago, IL), make sure you check out the Scrapblog booth. According to my best friend Cindy Li, who works at Scrapblog since May, they will be using my background illustrations.
More themes
This was one of the projects I had most fun with. It didn't feel like working really :) I'm planning on doing more theme work for Scrapblog when time permits.
29served
1
Nicely done lady!
Always a pleasure to see your new work. I’m waiting with baited breathe for the Duoh.com site launch.
Keep up the great work.
2
You are truly gifted.
3
It looks awesome and fresh… I’m new to your blog, but as far as I saw; I love it!
Awesome tutorials, they are going to help with my work! thanks a lot…
4
Wow 0.O
Very Slick
5
Hi Veerle, nice job.
Out of interest, after you’ve created your pencil sketches from photos and things, do you then scan them into Illustrator and pretty much ‘trace’ them? I draw pretty Simpsons-esque cartoons and was wondering how to make them a little less Simpsons-esque :)
6
Meh, you have great style! Your works just confirm that it’s possible to give some life to pictures without drawing extra-complicated shapes. That’s my opinion :-) Keep doing good work!
7
Wow, wonderful :o)
Very, very nice job, Veerle!
8
The real Veerle style! Very nice!
9
The artwork is fantastic! Love your work!
10
Amazing, Stunning, Beautiful, Awesome.. As well as all of your work!
I am a big fan of it, and allow me to say that you never stop amazing me.
Thank you!
11
Ok, that is outstanding work, great perspective and colors used.
I a am going to checkout Scrapblog. thanks for the tip
12
again, amazing Veerle. you really are an example for me :)
13
Lovely!! Very very good use of colors!
14
Looks fantastic. I really like the colors :)
15
Thanks guys for the sweet compliments :)
Greg Wood said:
Yes, I scan it as grayscale and then trace the image using Illustrator’s Pen tool. I place the image in a separate layer, select the ‘Template’ option in the Layers palette and start drawing on a new layer on top of it. I always use just a stroke color and no fill to draw the shape first. Once that’s done I start to give the object a filling.
16
Nice work there Veerle. :)
I work in a similar fashion, except instead of using stroked paths, i just hold down the Command key, then press the little eyeball icon next to my drawing layer..this converts the layer to Outline mode, which is more precise for detailed work.
17
Lovely work. I really like the exaggerated elegant limbs!
18
Very inspiring.
Would be happy to learn from you
Gre…....at
19
These are exactly the style I am wanting to achieve. They are really a great source of inspiration. I’d love to see more of your work!
20
Amazing…
Very nice work :)
21
Very nicely done. I love your style. The style of Scrapblog is cool too, a good concept.
22
Fantastic work as usual. I really like your style.
23
wow, what a cool theme for a fantastic application!
But in general I think there are a lots of good themes to choose from over at scrapblog!
24
Thanks for the sweet comments.
Steven Garcia said:
I do this a lot too, switching between preview modes only on the working layer by command clicking the eye. It’s very handy indeed. I do both actually. I like to do the filling part entirely after I got all the paths drawn. This is really my favorite part in the process. You really see it changing rapidly :)
25
Hi there,
I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you what an absolutely fantastic blog you have! I’ve recently set mine up and I only wish that it was half as good a yours!
I’m off to do some more exploring and add you to my blogroll.
kind regards
Jo
26
I love your job so much!
27
Jason Brooks watch out—here comes Veerle!
The lil’ dog is especially nice :)
28
Simply amazing. I’m glad that there are still some people with solid illustration skills. Everyone these days uses photoshop for 90% of things they should be using an illustration program for. I work in the printing industry and it’s always refreshing to get vector art.
29
This is wonderful, you do such amazing work. Im always inspired by you. I also scrapbook so this was and extra cool for me. Thanks.
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