A while back Snert Studios hired me to create some of the artwork for a website and Flash game. The end client was Reliant Energy, and the goal of the site/game was to help teach kids about conserving electricity. They gave me a list of elements they needed to animate in Flash (i.e. a spinning globe, boiling pot of water, etc.), and some sketches and reference materials as a jumping-off point.
The main character is a desk lamp which had previously appeared on TV commercials in Texas, so I was pretty tied to the existing design. They asked me to give it eyes and a mouth, but I could’t change it much beyond that.
If my memory is correct, this was the first project since buying my Cintiq where I was asked to create vector art (i.e. Illustrator) instead of raster art (i.e. Photoshop). In the past, when a client requested vector art I would ink a drawing on paper, scan it into Photoshop, and then use the Live Trace command in Illustrator to convert the art to vector. With my Cintiq I could now skip the scanning phase. To speed things up even more I decided to try drawing direcctly in Illustrator to get a wonky no-outlines look (which I’ve always thought looks realy neat, when its done right). Here’s what I submitted as the first pass:
The client told me they had hired me specifically because they liked my cartoony line work, so I was asked to go back and add inked outlines to everything. Fair enough, since I wa giving them something a little different than my normal look. I had to do a rush ink job but it didn’t turn out too badly. They also asked for a brighter color scheme, and in hindsight I think they were completely right. The blue/green/grey scheme didn’t “pop” enough. The lesson for me was, communicate clearly with the client about what is expected, especially if you are planning to try something new. Overall I’m happy with how everything turned out:
To see the final result with animated roll-overs, or to play the game, click here.