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New Design Work I did. This is hand lettering I based on DC Comics 1950s Mystery in Space Science Fiction Comic Book Series. I often choose to letter designs and logos by hand because it gives the piece more personality and avoids the sterility of what you get working 100% in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Most people have no clue how labor intensive it is to do a job like this.

I get asked often by people if I can help redesign a logo or letter something and most of the time I have to say no because of the amount of work that goes into it. Of course everyone has a price and if offered enough money or a fair trade I would be happy to do the work. With that said the amount of work I do is nothing compared to some of the top of the food chain graphic designers. Although I do a lot of work I’ve been to the Dual Forces studio in Los Angles many times. Not only will they extensively research an idea for weeks and longer once they have a basic design they will turn out nearly 100 different iterations of that one idea. That’s one of the many reasons why they are the best and work with the all the biggest brands on the planet.

For this job I started out researching a lot of old science fiction pulp magazines and comic books I will do this until I come across something that inspires me or triggers my imagination. Once I had an idea of what I wanted to create I got started by drawing several boxes in perspective laying out where I want things to go.

Next I used a non-photo blue lead pencil to roughly sketch in all the letters.

After that I scanned in my sketch and created a grid in Adobe illustrator. This is to make sure all my lines match up to the correct vanishing points. I couldn’t do this part traditionally because the vanishing points for this design are so far away I would need a ruler the length of my living room. If you don’t know any thing about vanishing points there are lots of good books you can research to learn. I would recommend  Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up as a good starting point. This book helped me a lot when I was first learning today I have numerous books in my library on this subject.

Once I had my grid built I printed everything out and tightened it down with my pencil and ruler making adjustments to my design.

I will continue to build up the design with my pencil and ruler until I’m confident enough to move onto inking.

The final step for this one was to scan in the final inked drawing and color digitally.