Mdith Design & Illustration

This is my first illustration for The UB Post, University of Baltimore’s student newspaper. Click the image for the full piece – it will run the entire length of a page and it’s pretty tall. It will accompany a piece about malfunctioning elevators on campus. The man in the middle is UB’s President, Robert Bogolmony – the production manager asked me to include him, since he too was stuck in an elevator last year!

Just last week, I joined the staff as a page designer and I will be contributing illustrations as well, plus whatever else I can take on. It’s funny to start working on the paper before I’ve even started classes, but I’m happy! I sort of missed working on the newspaper over the summer, so I’m looking forward to working on the UB Post!

The process was interesting to me – I started pencils in Sketchbook Pro as usual. However, instead of my usual method of inking in Sketchbook Pro as well, I did most of the inking in Illustrator with the Brush tool. Then I used Live Paint to add the basic colors. (I was inspired to try this after reading about Rene Engström’s process. She’s the creator of one of my favorite webcomics, Anders Loves Maria) Then I added texture, highlights and shadow in Photoshop, using some of the brushes created by my former instructor, David Zobel. It was fun! And important, since I’m still trying to figure out the best way to work completely digitally and maintain my style at the same time.

p.s. That guy with the laptop? May or may not be based on a certain comics-creating web-developing guy I know, who is not actually a UB student, but is pretty awesome all the same.

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