To help people understand how we go about our work we decided to show how a quick hand-drawn illustration is scanned, coloured and finished on a computer to create an effective and powerful presentation image in only half a day.

Initially, a coloured pencil sketch is roughly sketched.  Once this has taken shape, it is drawn over more precisely with a fine black pen.  This drawing was done on A4 plain paper using a simple blue coloured pencil and a rotring 0.5 technical pen.

Once scanned in, the levels can be adjusted to remove the texture of the paper and any sign of the blue pencil.

At this point the block colour is added, normally on several layers in PhotoShop, sitting beneath the layer with the line drawing.

A further layer is used to add some shading and detailing to create the illusion of 3-dimensions.  Digitally created text is skewed slightly and added in several places.

Finally a water texture is used behind the illustration, and fine detailing such as the splashing section line (where the water surface is cut by the view) and the gentle suggestion of the anchor lines are added.  

The image has been constructed very quickly, yet clearly shows some complicated concepts which might be difficult to explain, and would be very costly and time-consuming to engineer into a developed 3-dimensional concept.  The resulting image took only 4 hours and could be used in a printed brochure, large-format exhibition stand, PowerPoint presentation, online data-sheet or website.