How we create artwork
Beliefs
Edutainment-first
Each piece of artwork we produce has three things to keep in mind. One, to visually express and enhance what viewers want to learn. Two, to produce that expression in a way that those viewers will really enjoy and appreciate. Three, to maintain continuity and immersion with the rest of the production the artwork belongs to. This intersection is where our artwork uniquely shines, supporting education, nurturing delight, and assisting conversion. Everything we produce should live at that intersection: things that help people "grow through fun," however they define fun or enjoyment.
Comfy but with personality
Our artwork should feel comfortable and familiar to the people it’s for. Most commercial artwork is fairly sterile and, frankly, a bit boring. It's so samey, it practically need not be there at all, as its essence and duty has been sacrificed at the altar of peer mimicry. That's not a call to follow. Rather, it's a call to meet visitors where they are, and give show them something special, something different, something they resonate with, something that draws them in.
“Comfy” means there's familiarity for visitors, so that it's not completely "out there." The comfort assures them they're in the right place, while the personality shows them this is a completely new opportunity for them. “Personality” means warmth, intentional quirks, visual decisions that feel thoughtful and delightful, rather than templated. Our goal is not to impress other artists. Our goal is to make the right people feel at ease, curious, and engaged, and as though they're going to enjoy using this (however they define "enjoy").
Less but better
We favor fewer elements, executed with more care, over many elements executed poorly. We can do a lot with a little, if those few pieces are excellent.
The details matter: consistent line discipline and considered volumes. Restrained, intentional color palettes. Inference to the "story" each piece tells, relative to the overall work. Masterful inking and rendering. Repetition of subjects and world material so users can relax into the experience. If we're going to include something new to add to a page, it needs a darn good reason for being there, beyond "it looks nice" or "I saw a competitor do it". If it doesn’t serve the experience, it doesn’t belong.
Not for everyone
Our work is not designed to please everyone. It is crafted for the defined target audience, and people one degree removed from them. If an art decision improves clarity, comfort, or enjoyment for the intended audience but might confuse or alienate others, that's totally okay, and often desirable. Trying to make work that pleases everyone usually results in work that excites no one.
Process
Sketch
The first step is to see it. Sketches let us see the work and secure approval from both partners and designers, before we go through the process of actually making it each piece. This is useful for obvious reasons: we can ink and render confidently, without anxiety about whether it'll get shot down, and without rushing to show something substantial for feedback. When things are shared in low-fidelity like this, people tend not to judge it on the details, because there are no details yet! It focuses everyone on the shape of the work, and the flow of the piece in relation to the rest of the work. Photograph a piece of paper, draw in Photoshop/CSP/Krita, or a mixture of the two. Totally up to you. The important thing is that we can show how it'll look, before we make it, so we can make it confidently and calmly.
Sanity check
At this stage, art and design review the progress to ensure we're in scope. We change the shape of the work if not, then proceed with the production process.
Tie down
With an approved sketch, we can start tying down the sketch. The tie down phase consists of taking the sketches we prepared, and working into the winning directions so that the loose line inferences consolidate around stronger line composition. We're not cleaning up the art yet, we're making sure everything fits where it goes, and still feels good as things move from sketchy lines to real digital form. We don't tend to secure partner feedback at this stage, since there's nothing for them to really give feedback on.
Clean up
The clean up phase consists of inking the final form of each piece, laying base tones to ensure the volumes all feel right, and defining the highs and lows throughout the piece. At this stage, if you lean back and squint your eyes, it basically looks like the finished piece. This is a stage we do share with partners for feedback, with the note that it is medium-fidelity, not finished, it's ahead of rendering and dialing in the details, so they can sign off on the piece coming together as they'd like. The disclaimer is important, so that nobody conflates MedFi materials with HiFi materials.
Render
This stage produces is the final version of the piece. Once this is approved, there should be no further tweaks to make in order to progress over to the handover stage.
Handover
With rendering complete, at this stage we get things ready for designers to take over. Everything is exported in clean, 24-bit pngs, with swatches and styles clearly defined for orderly reuse if subsequent images are to be produced. Any user interactions are written up, such as if the piece comes in multiple slices for assembly. Designers should then have everything they need to confidently construct the piece in the design, with the final result properly representing the vision behind the artwork.
Tools
What we use, and why we use them.
Clip Studio Paint
When working with line-art-heavy artwork files, we use CSP wonderful vector brush system. Great for page flow, cartoon-style visuals, and resizable line art.
Photoshop
Raster image editor, background painting, vector fx, sketching, thumbnailing, raster illustration. There are simpler tools, we’ve tried many of them (Pixelmator, Affinity Photo/Designer, GIMP, Procreate) but nothing beats Photoshop in these areas. In the toolkit since 2002.
Toon Boom Storyboard Pro
Storyboarding and animatics. We love how it enables us to flow from storyboarding to animatic, scripts in tow, and hand-over to Harmony in one continuous, smooth workflow. In the toolkit since 2021 (previously, Adobe Photoshop & Bridge since 2002).
Toon Boom Harmony Premium
2D animation. Industry standard in the animation industry. It's mature, organized, the deformations/rigging is fantastic, and makes both cutout and paperless workflows a dream. In the toolkit since 2021 (previously, Adobe Animate/Flash since 2002).
Ezgif
When we need to cut webp images, be they static or animated, Ezgif is a really convenient way of doing that. For static images, it has a png-to-webp converter. For animated images (eg assembling individual frames exported from Harmony) it has a webp maker.
Technical Checks
Things we always do.
Check the handover
Before handing work over, ensure assets are properly exported, with no strange halos or effects accidentally trying to bake into alpha. Verify that colors look correct after exporting. Manually export a full composition as well as the component parts; designers should never need to guess or recreate art decisions.
Check the brief at every stage
Sometimes a good idea can become a bad idea, if it loses sight of the goal it’s trying to achieve, and for whom. So checking the goal in each stage helps prevent that from happening, or from a misdirection from carrying on too long through the process.
Artist vs paintbrush
Know, going into a piece of art, whether you’re being the artist or the paintbrush. When you’re the artist, you’re conceiving the solution. When you’re the paintbrush, you’re expressing a prescribed solution. Neither is right or wrong, good or bad. Just know which one you are in this specific design, contributing fully within those parameters.
Pride-check
When the work is done, are you truly proud of the work we’ve done? Truly? If it shipped like this today, which parts would haunt you, or make you think “hm, maybe that part there shouldn’t feature in the team portfolio”, or lower the perceived quality of the whole design or experience? If able, raise these areas as concerns before the work ships. We should be proud of the work we do.
Collaborate with those working one degree from you
If you’re crafting artwork, you’re 1 degree from the designer who builds it, 1 degree from the copywriter, and 1 degree from the person leading the project. This means you should liaise with those people, ensuring you have everything you need from them, and they have everything they need from you. Be the collaborator you wish everyone else was: be clear and thorough in your communication, prompt and proactive in your responses, and go the extra mile to make things buttery-smooth when they deal with you. The artwork is on you to be the best it can be, so go get what you need, and go give them what they need, so the finished result can be as great as it can be.
Technical no-gos
Things we never do.
Don’t skip steps
Some of the steps may feel superfluous sometimes, but the work is better when we stick to them. So stick to them.
Don’t ship to partners without peer-review
We’re only human: sometimes a second pair of eyes can be invaluable in spotting things you became blind to due to exposure to the work. Have someone peer-review it, to where they put their name to the deliverable’s quality too. Two sets of eyes committed to the work are better than one.
Don’t miss deadlines
If we have deadlines, do not miss them. That means proactive communication around your work to ensure you have everything you need in good time, managing your schedule to comfortably meet the deadlines even if multiple rounds of revisions show up, and over-communicating about how things are going on your side of things, so that everybody can see movement and not worry about whether or not you dropped the ball. If a deadline is under threat, communicate it as early as possible—as soon as you suspect it may be. That gives the team time to assess what to do about that: let a partner know if there is one, cut scope to make it fit, increase support on the project so there are more hands working on it, or simply resolve to push through and find the time to make it work if the scope nor the budget can shift, and there is no one else who can jump in to support.
Don’t work in chaos
The art process can be messy at times. But a craftsman always leaves his desk in order. Your working files artboards should be clearly labelled and neatly organized, so that anyone who uses them can easily find what they’re looking for. Photoshop/CSP layers should be grouped and named for easy reuse in the future. Any requests you made should have a follow-up scheduled so you don’t forget (either make a to-do for yourself for that, or snooze an email notification about it, whatever works best for you) so nothing slips through the cracks. Stay organized, so you (or worse, others) don’t have to work in chaos.