Eli's Art

My nephew (age 6) sketched these darling images of Ironman & Wolverine.  When my sister orginially shared them with me, we both gushed over how cute they were!  I had decided to take his drawings and create a t-shirt to give him as a gift for his birthday.

I usually create things from scratch in my design program but, there was no way I could re-create Eli's drawing without losing the innocence of the colored pencil sketching.  I knew other designers had done this before so I was confident I could do it too.

Without boring you with all the technical details, here is a little of how the process went...

I started with the scanned images my sister sent me:
I opened them in my design editing program (Illustrator for those who are wondering).  I needed to eliminate all the exccess space around his drawings so I used a "tracing tool" to cutout the art I wanted and then I expanded the images.  This process transferred his art from a scanned JPG into vector art.  Vector art gives me the ability to change colors, adjust sizing without losing quality, and erase some of those pesky scribbles around the outside.  After doing all of that to Wolverine & Ironman, this is what I had to work with:

I did his handwriting too because there is just something too adorable about a kids handwriting.  Yes, I could have easily found a font that looked similar to his writing but, this is way more personal.  After these became vector files, I could manipulate them anyway I wanted.  I played around with a few ideas and tried the designs on t-shirts.  In the end, I made a choice to have the images printed on a sketchbook.  Auntie wants her nephew to continue his sketching skills.  I put together a pattern and ordered him a sketchbook with a custom cover featuring his artwork!  I think I will make him a poster for his room too?  Here is the pattern:

This was a fun little project and I hope Eli loves his new sketchbook!  (I'll try to update with a photo of the sketchbook when it comes in the mail.)

It is true that you learn something new every day!