Love Is In The Air - Part Two

Click image for larger version. You can even see a fancy animation
showing the sketch fading into the final image!

I've finished my wedding invitation piece, and the client was delighted with it, as was her fiance. I was a little worried that the fanciful color scheme - especially the trees - would cause her concern, but she really liked the effect. The only revision she requested (actually, it came from her fiance) was that the flowers get more definition - the original version of the bouquet was more amorphous, but in the final version I defined the shapes as roses.

In my first pass vectorizing the piece (using the long-defunct but much-loved Freehand and my trusty Wacom tablet), some of the pieces in the front - the stone pilings and stand for the sculpture - were gray, and the ground was kind of a concrete color (which is what it really looks like - see comparison below) but those literal colors were boring and didn't convey the kind of romantic, whimsical feel my client was going for - so I deviated.

I kept a jazzy, loose feel to the structures - it didn't make sense to create totally perfect perspective and angles for a piece like this. I think that kind of treatment would have come off as looking too technical and less artistic. Elements were simplified into mostly monochromatic versions of their real-world counterparts. I also reduced the width of the water so it could fit completely into my piece - I didn't want anything to overshadow the couple. I considered adding the fountain's spume, but it was another element that might have competed with the bride and groom - and I really needed the sky color to provide contrast behind the bridal gown - a light or white fountain shooting up there would have been a problem.

My only regret is, because of the bride's dress and the shape of the letter, the L is pretty heavily obscured. I couldn't find a way out of that one, so I've got assume that the ubiquity of the landmark, combined with the fact that people know how to spell the word "love", will help the viewer's mind complete the image.

And here's a comparison - my version versus reality. I've already designed the invitations and RSVP cards, using a couple different croppings of the piece. Maybe I'll even get invited - if not, hey - I'll just print an extra invitation. Don't tell.