[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 9 | June 6, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Andrea Sarto says, “As an illustrator it is interesting (and often cringe-inducing) to look back and observe the evolution of my drawing style over the years. Usually it’s a steady progression with the odd experiment thrown in but Guess What! was possibly the most dramatic shift in my style in recent memory.
My original approach to the characters (above) was very typical of the work I was producing at the time, cartoony with black outlines, flat colours and simple shading. I was given a nice, clear brief describing their main features and I was quite happy with my initial designs, though in retrospect the eyes were a bit googly. I thought, for a robot, iPal was particularly cute. The comments at this stage were to make David and Olivia’s hair less old-fashioned (a bit alarming as David’s hairstyle was based on my son’s!), a few clothing adjustments and to change iPal’s eyes to be more robotic. However the main request was to make the colouring and shading more 3D.
I replaced the flat colour with gradients, beefed up the shading and added highlights. The figures now had more depth and their characteristics were finalised but the style still wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t 3D enough”.