I mentioned in a previous post that, in “pre-computer” days, I’d frequently create ink artwork by drawing an initial pencil sketch, then inking it in and erasing the pencil outline as I went. This early example was produced in that way, except that, for some long-forgotten reason, in this case I still have a version of the original sketch.
At the time, I was the Publicity Officer of the Imperial College H G Wells Society, and this was a poster illustration for a talk entitled “The Psychology of Gambling”. The reason for choosing a “comic strip” inkwork technique was due to the limitations of the society’s poster printing capabilities. Posters could be printed only in black, and the process handled line art much better than it did halftones.
The lettering for the poster, which isn’t included in the image, was added by literally pasting down strips of printout from the same phototypesetter that was used to create the Student Union newspaper. This was long before the days of desktop publishing!
The pencil sketch that survives in this case shows some differences, relative to the final form of the drawing. The pose of the male figure is actually better in the sketch; he seems to have become more stiffly “wooden” in the final image!
The pencil sketch also reveals the design of the image, in that the vanishing point was deliberately set to be the palm of the male figure’s hand.
This was the first illustration I created while at Imperial College, and its public display led to many other requests for artwork during my undergraduate days.