A sample line art  illustration I did for a client. I drew it first on paper using 0.1 fine line pen. Later scanned it down and enhanced the brightness in Photoshop. I had to adjust the brightness because scanning doesn’t always gives the correct brightness when we scan directly from a sketchbook with thick board cover. So I got a clean white background just like the one in my sketchbook:

Later I export it to Illustrator and convert it to vectors, changed the outline color to dark blue, do a simple flat coloring on separate layer and rearranged all the items like this:

There’s actually a company logo after the doughnut, but I covered it up because I don’t have the permission to use the logo.

Drawing takes about 15 minutes while scanning up to coloring and everything took about an hour. It seems pretty easy that it can be done is just 10-20 minutes, ya? Well, it is but I took the time to find the right color combination not to mention rearranging them.

I actually made a direct drawing in Illustrator using tablet-pen like this:

But somehow I feel that it is too clean, that it doesn’t have that ‘oomph’ feeling. Get what I mean? I like it better using pen, the effect is more satisfying even after you convert it to vectors. The imperfect outline makes it perfect.