Illustration rendering tools of yesterday have not been eliminated; they have just been augmented. Exponentially. At the same time, the process and work of illustration rendering has been elevated and enhanced—by cutting edge advances of computer graphic technology.
From pen and pencil stills to flash animation. From watercolor washes to interactive color changing clicks. 2-D shading and shadows to 3-D light studies, motion, and sound. Your illustration rendering expertise is just as applicable and just as sought after, but your process has changed a bit. You have evolved with the technology and have even more to offer, as you have added to your rendering repertoire: you have packed up your paints and moved to the virtual realism of illustration rendering online.
Clients now visit your illustration rendering website:
You offer top of the line packages, now—animated fly-bys and walk-throughs, interactive conceptualization, panoramic tours, photo modification and montage, slide shows, and virtual reality tours. Impressed with your portfolio, they contact you—by email. You now ask—instead of whether they want Rapidiograph pen or pastels, oils or air brush—whether they want interactive graphics with or without animation, with or without auditory accent (music, voices), with emphasis on space or a study in light. Questions of intended expression now include what message to convey with what time of day it will be in their virtual reality rendering (will there be windows letting in dusk, or a skylight showing moving clouds), how they want the viewer perspective (will the viewer be walking through with an average-heighted view, will the viewer sit perched atop the stairs), how busy or calm the activity be, how loud or soft the ambient noise (for the illustration rendering can now have movement and sound!).
You now refer them to your dynamic illustration rendering portfolio online:
And your displays have movement. They have light. They have moving light. They have sounds—voices, laughter, music, song. The furniture and fixtures in your models are realistic enough to make the viewers want to sit in the red leather chair that gives off such a defined presence they can almost hear it or smell it. The bedroom set has veneer so clear they feel they are close enough to peel it. The glint of sunlight that moves about the surfaces of audibly rustling trees is so real it is surreal.
Clients can emotionally experience the impact of your illustration:
And they can reach you—from remote locations, can hire you for illustration rendering services they might never had access to before this, services for which you now can quote a price--online, can request electronic files of drawings and plans in digital format. Online. You can send and receive sample textures, materials, and multimedia selections as print media or website-ready files. You can send drafts--online. You can deliver final illustration renderings by CAD file format or by uploading them to FTP servers. You can respond to concerns and changes in hours, can get approvals for changes in minutes, can send mpegs and jpegs and avi bites in seconds…. And you can even get paid, online, in milliseconds.
And because advanced computer applications do not replace traditional methods for producing illustration renderings (but instead simulate them and/or enhance them) you don’t have to toss your pencils and pens.
