I wish I could sit down with a blank sheet of paper and project an image from my mind, like that from an opaque projector, onto the paper and trace it. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work that way. I have to yank the ideas out kicking and screaming against their will. Once on the paper, it still requires even more laborious coercion at the point of a pencil before the idea behaves the way I want it to. This post is a description of the process.

Concept
Nearly all of our designs are collaborations with Marines. Sometimes we get a detailed sketch and other times we just get a general description. For this sketch we received the following instruction from Cpl B, who is currently stationed in Iraq:

We are looking for a Devil Dog in a Trojan outfit much like the design on
your home page. The devil dog should be on one or maybe two 7-ton trucks as
if it was riding a chariot. The Operation for us is Operation Iraqi Freedom
8. It should say something like “Truckin it through Al Anbar Province” or
something like that.

Rough Sketch
Before I went too far, I wanted to make sure I was on the right track. This was a little like playing Pictionary. My goal here was to get the basic idea down to communicate with Cpl B my interpretation of his idea. I may do several of these before I come up with something that I like. Once submitted to Cpl B he was able to give his input. Here is the first rough. Sometimes, my roughs aren’t even this tight and look like little more than chicken scratch.

Working Out the Perspective
After I received feedback and suggestions, the next step was to work out the perspective of the vehicles. I have a good understanding of perspective so my initial sketches tend to be in the right ball park; however, for the final drawing I wanted the perspective to be a little more accurate. I put a scan of the image into Adobe Illustrator and worked out the specific perspective issues for this drawing. This picture was deceptively hard. I needed two trucks of the same proportion at different depths. Added to that I needed to pull the back truck off the same plane to give a jostling effect. This involved plotting vanishing traces, and ellipses to determine the exact arc of the vehicle. Perspective is a study unto itself. You can check out some resources on my Squidoo lens if you’re interested in picking up the skill:

Link: Learn to be an Illustrator on Squidoo

Getting Reference
It would be nice if I had a photographic memory; I would love to store accurate images in my mind of everything I’ve ever seen. Such is not the case. Since my initial drawings of the seven ton trucks where rather vague, I pulled some reference of seven ton trucks to study.

Understanding the Reference
Because I couldn’t find any truck in the exact position I needed it in, I needed to understand the reference, not just copy it. I did this by reverse engineering the basic shapes and proportions of the vehicle. It’s simpler than it sounds. I just traced the image and put it into a perspective grid to understand the proportions and construction.

Putting it all Together
This part was actually pretty easy. I printed out the perspective work form illustrator onto a large sheet of paper. Then I taped smooth bristol board to it and traced it on a light table. I gridded the perspective box to match the grid on my tracing and just worked the rest out. I wanted an element of caricature to the vehicles so I pulled and exaggerated the proportions wherever I saw fit.

That’s it. That’s the finished sketch. From here, the next step is ink it.