Roughs and other illustration terms

And what the heck do they mean when they say the want to see sketches ?!?!

An unused icon form the “roughs” stage of an illustration

The common stages of an illustration are, thumbnails, roughs, then finals. The image above is an unused icon from the roughs stage of an illustration. That’s another illustration term, icon.

And icon is to an illustration like what a word is to a paragraph. It’s a single meaningful unit. This particular icon was dropped as we tried to make the page less cluttered. Leaving more breathing space.

I believe that your ability to communicate about illustration and the market you’re in greatly increases the chances of getting work and delivering good work. You’ll need to be able to understand what’s being asked of you on to deliver it.

I keep learning new words, and different publishers might use slightly different words, for example instead of thumbnails, they might ask for a storyboard (which is somewhere between a thumbnail and a rough)

So, the next time someone asks you for sketches, it’s best you clarify exactly what they mean!

PS: the stages of an illustration might not map with your actual illustration process. It definitely does not map to mine, so with each client, I tailor my process to suit their approval stages. And I designed this ‘style’ to be used in my roughs. I wanted a style that communicated what I was thinking quickly, but also left a little bit of room for interpretation when working on the finals.