Birthday Card for Dad!

Dads Birthday Card
Dads Birthday Card

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while now. It was my Dad’s birthday a couple of weeks ago which meant I of course needed to make him a birthday card for the occasion!

I took inspiration for the design from some Tudor lettering I discovered a while ago. I liked the way the ribbon weaved around the letters and wanted to make something that was similar yet a little more modern.

Dad's Birthday Card - Original Inspiration
Original Reference (blue letters)
Dad's Birthday Card - Original Sketch
Original Sketch
Dad's Birthday Card - Computer Generated Version
Realigned and adjusted for tracing

Because of the detail in the letters and the small space it would need to fit into, my initial idea was to create the artwork at a larger size and then print it onto the smaller card.

Dad's Birthday Card - After colouring finished
Finished colouring

When I finished the letters, the ribbons didn’t really look like they wrapped around but instead they just looked like blocks of colour. What I decided to do was print out and trace the original lettering to get a ‘feel’ of how the ribbons curl.

Dad's Birthday Card - Comparing to Original Reference
Comparing and drawing over the original reference

While the shapes were correct, my ribbons weren’t showing the curve from the front of the ribbon to the back so I needed to somehow better illustrate this. I decided to draw outlines, similar to the original reference, along the edges which highlighted the curve looping round.

Dad's Birthday Card - Adding Outlines
Outlines added to the first line – unlike the second word, it now looks like the ribbon wraps around, not just blocks of diagonal colour.
Dad's Birthday Card - Sharpened Pencil
This is how I drew all the thin lines- by sharpening this sucker down! These are just coloured pencils, I was originally usually watercolour pencils but the lead was too soft.
Dad's Birthday Card - Completed Outlines
All edges outlined!

I thought I had finished the card design and just had to print it. I even found more of the light textured card stock I thought had been all used up. Things were coming up Milhouse!

Unfortunately, my printer didn’t agree with this optimism and decided to print the card with a yucky green tinge. I didn’t have time to fix this so I started again, this time drawing directly onto the card. This was a lot harder than the first time because I had to scale down the letters to even smaller than before.

Dad's Birthday Card - Colours completed
Can you read it yet ^^? – Decided to be more colourful with yellow, orange and red edges
Dad's Birthday Card - Finished Card
Finished!

I actually ended up not drawing in the lines through the ribbon because I thought it actually looked better. Looking at it now though I think I should have stuck to my original plan ^^;.. I don’t think it’s that bad though and the my dad liked it anyway, which I think is the most important thing ^_^.

What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments!

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