hardluckhotel.co.uk | home of keith bloomfield

When asked to create an avatar for a web page biog to be used on my companies website, two thoughts crossed my mind. One was not to use a photograph, the second was as I always look like my 2D avatar when made on the Wii’s Mii channel or via Guitar Hero’s create a Rocker, why not go 2D here.

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The look of the character was inspired by anime cartoons and began as an initial pencil and pen sketch, which was when redone in Berol. It was then scanned and imported in Illustrator, given the Live Trace once over, coloured, shadows created and then placed on a photographic background shot of a location in West Bromwich.

Of course I’d forgotten to include my glasses which were added later. The whole project took an afternoon and will finally appear elsewhere as a 100×100 pixel avatar. So here is a chance to see the full sized piece.

The gallery below shows the basic elements that were used to create the final illustration.

West Bromwich background photograph courtesy of Richard Franks.