Case Study: Large Scale Artwork by Storyboard Illustrator
As a storyboard illustrator, I created a backdrop for an event at South African Breweries. I drew many smaller images by hand, and they were then processed into a final composite ready-for-print vector illustration file that could be printed on a 25 meter wide beer tent.
The separate illustrations were hand-drawn, much like a very huge storyboard.
Then I art-directed the process of joining them up to make one huge image.
Each illustration was individually coloured in Photoshop.
I created the backgrounds using Photoshop to give photographs an illustrated look with a stock-standard Photoshop poster edges filter, then a six-stage customised action to achieve a black-and-white line drawing effect from a normal photograph.
The Vectorisation Stage
There were several stages in the process of putting these huge images together.
Due to the large size of the final artwork and the file-size constraints of the vectorisation software, each individual drawing had to be vectorised separately. They were then assembled into the final artwork in Adobe Illustrator, which also complained about a 25 meter document.
Although very work-intensive, the process was well worth the effort because, once vectorised, the final product looked fantastic. Also, with vector images, there is no limit to how large the artwork can be printed.*
* the final artwork is theoretically infinitely scalable, limited only by the size of the universe.
Scientists are working to overcome that limitation in a future version of Illustrator 😉
We used the same techniques to create a barn mural to show the brewing process.
