As soon as Aftri said that she wanted to do a collab about “magical things” I knew I wanted in. Me? Magic? Yes please! We decided to go along the lines of magical girls and I had the best time. It was so much fun, and the quickest collab I’ve ever done, and within a week since putting together a thumbnail sketch we were both gazing happily at the (shared) screen at our work. Here’s a more detailed account of our process…
Our Process
Idea Generation
Aftri came up with the general subject of our collab and I grabbed this quote online from Jen Bartel that I had in my mind for quite a while. It was absolutely perfect as we both have a shared love of magical girls and spooky things! I then came up with a quick thumbnail sketch which provided the skeleton of our type structure, and soon Aftri sent me a more detailed sketch with her thoughts.
Initial thumbnail sketch
Developed sketch by Aftri
Inking
Then it was time to start inking! Aftri sent me her letters first and soon I was carefully weaving my letters around hers. We are both very similar in the sense that we love to tie in illustration with lettering so the whole process was easy-peasy. I scanned it in, put everything together, and we scheduled in a Google Hangout so that we could colour it “together”.
Colour Me Happy!
When Sunday morning came (well, Sunday evening for Aftri as she’s based in Indonesia!) and I coloured everything in shades of grey to make it easier to put in the full colours. Our vision for it was so clear that the colouring took just under an hour to complete!
I had so much fun and I thank Instagram (and the internet in general) for bringing Aftri into my life so that we could create magical pieces like this! It is quite easily one of the best pieces I’ve ever done in years, and I’m going to cherish it forever - however cheesy that may sound!