This year I have decided to create my own Christmas card for our home by drawing a picture of us all to make it a bit more personal.

I started by sketching my illustration by hand which was rather an odd experience as it had been some years since I had put pencil to paper when doing any graphical drawing.

What i found most amusing about drawing this was that I kept wanting to ’save’ and ‘undo’…

Once I was happy with my sketch I scanned it in to my computer and imported it into Adobe Illustrator, I locked this layer and started to go over my lines with the brush tool on a new layer, then I used the pen tool to draw out my shapes which would contain my colour and gradients. I added in some further shadows and hi-lights with the pen tool until I was happy with all my characters before removing the initial brush outlines. Finally I added the background sofa and decor to give it a Christmas feel.

Overall I am very happy with the final outcome and it just goes to show that even with a wacom tablet you still cannot beat pencil and paper to start your drawings off.