Beginning with my rough and my A2 layout, I was able to centre my image exactly including elements which feature across all 3 of my designs such as the circle sun element and where I wanted this to appear in relation to my design.
Once my rough and circle sun element were in place, I began my tracing the larger ‘key’ elements of my rough such as the Calvino portrait, using the pen and brush tool. Using these tools helped to create smooth lines and made the task of using a track pad a lot easier.
Once the face and hand had been drawn, I was then able to focus on creating specific elements of my composition to add and arrange later. Reference was key for me here in terms of what a boat and camel should like. However, in terms of the types of building I wanted to feature in this design, I created them all reference free – helping to keep each building individual and the design free.
Once each individual element had been created as a freeform shape, I was able to position them easily within the composition. It was extremely helpful at this stage to have each element as an editable shape, being able to change the size and shape of it accordingly, to fit well in the overall design.
When positioning the building for the city element of the composition, I found it really helpful to have each building in a different colour (instead of just plain black line with a white fill. This way I could see how each building interacted with one another and what would work best where.
Once all elements were in place, I then had the difficult task of making the whole composition black and white for ease of transfer. This wasn’t just a case of making each element /shape transparent with black outlines – a lot of shapes overlapped in areas which would show through the transparency causing confusion. Each element had to be created as an individual shape, each finger, eye, face, building etc in order to be filled in with white. Any open edges or unjoining lines meant that a shape was incomplete and could not be filled. After this was completed, I was then able to re-arrange elements in front or behind of other elements accordingly.
Final digital rough composition ready for print and transfer