Desk-O-pus (Part 1)

So we just got awesome new desks at work that are made out of untreated wood doors

my new desk

I decided that it would be cool to design a fun decal to decorate it with. My plan is to design it digitally, have it printed as a large vinyl graphic, place it on the table, and then coat the table with heavy varnish to seal everything down.

When thinking about what exactly the graphic should be, I naturally decided on an octopus.

The first step was to sketch out a general idea.

The initial sketch

Next, I put the drawing inside my computer and start tracing in Adobe Illustrator

I use pink for the tracing lines because it's easy to see

Since I want the octopus to be relatively symmetrical I only illustrate one half, and when that side is done I will copy and reverse it to complete the illustration.

BEFORE putting both sides together, I go through all the curves and make sure they look right. This requires a lot of fine tuning of the path handles.

Playing around with handles

Bam! Here's the finished outline.

Check back next time when I add the color and highlights, adjust stroke widths, and fine tune all the details to get this guy ready for print.

-Jason