Most everything I do, begins as a thumbnail in my moleskine sketchbook. This illustration of Bob Parr is derived directly from concept work done by the artists at Disney•Pixar and was merely an exercise in seeing if my current stylistic approach would work on a polished cartoon character like Bob Parr from The Incredibles. 

I started, like most of my portraits in Adobe Illustrator creating shapes and fills with either flat colors or gradients. This blocking allows me to refine the composition and really establish a good base for the painting which is done in Adobe Photoshop.

Once in Adobe Photoshop, I have the ability to not only paint using my custom-made brushes, as well as the plethora of ones provided with the Adobe Creative Suite (read: Kyle Webster) but I can also use the massive capabilities of channel operations.

These channel operations allow layers of “paint” and “line” to interact in a multitude of ways that can reinforce the effect I want my illustration to have on the viewer. This also allows me the chance to add effects, like lighting or rain, based on the subject matter of the painting.

All in all, it is a long process and akin to some of my traditional skills when I used to cut friskets for airbrush for paintings on my favorite Strathmore illustration board.