Bringing a Virus to Life

I’ve been working on an animation about Zika Virus Disease and I thought I’d show you the process. It’s a slightly different process than how I normally animate so I have a lot of background pieces I can share this time.

The first two images are the concept sketches/storyboards in pencil. This is the stage where I am working out the general idea of the piece and getting the flow of the story right. It doesn’t always happen but my final animation is pretty close to the original pencils in this case.

Concept sketch/storyboards in pencil

 

Next is the color palette (I have been an artist for 30 years, you’d think I would be able to spell palette without the aid of spellchecker by now) and artwork in Adobe Illustrator. The first thing I set up are the color swatches. In the swatches, at the bottom left of the image below, the first thing I work out are the colors in the center horizontal row. This is my main color idea. Then I do tints and shades above and below to create the palette. The fonts are Roboto and Roboto Slab, two of my current favorites right now. I’m also pretty into Raleway right now but it really didn’t work for this piece.

For the continents I found a free vector line drawing of a world map and then used a script to fill each area with circles. It still took a while to get it just right but it was much faster than drawing and placing hundreds of circles. Click here for a link to the script if you want to try it out.

If you’re not familiar with illustration software, a vector line drawing is a mathematical line drawing that can be infinitely scaled up or down without loosing line quality and a script is a subprogram that you can insert into a program like Adobe Illustrator to run a specific set of commands.

Art and color palette done in Adobe Illustrator

The next step was to rebuild the storyboards to size in Adobe Illustrator using the art and color palette from the previous step. This is where I changed my workflow a bit.

Color storyboards using art created in Adobe Illustrator

Typically at this stage I will scan the pencil storyboards as separate images and create an animatic/animated storyboard in After Effects. An animated storyboard is just a rough animation with still images so the voiceover, music, sound effects, and timing can be tested. Then I will build a master art file (okay, if you are not an artist and definitely not an animator I’m sure your eyes glazed over just a second ago and you started to think about that meme you saw on Facebook this morning – sorry about that, but hang with me a few more sentences) full size and import that into After Effects and start animating on top of the stills.  For this piece I did full size color storyboards in Illustrator. They are all in one document but are on different full-size art boards so they can then be exported separately and used in After Effects to create a full color animatic.

Ah, see, I skipped a step just for you non animators. Here is the animatic created from the storyboards.

The step I skipped is the style boards. I typically don’t do style boards but this time I was going for specific look and needed to be sure it was doable before going on. These are three of the storyboards taken into Adobe Photoshop and made to look like cut paper with drop shadows. I was really happy with the look.

Style Boards showing paper texture and drop shadow effects

Style Board 2

Style Board 3

In fact, I was so happy with the look that I wanted to share it with the world! Actually it did take some time to work out how to do it so I made a tutorial to save fellow artist the headaches of arguing with layer masks in Photoshop.

I also had a small argument with sharing a color palette between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop…so I made another tutorial (’cause I was feeling all warm, fuzzy, and altruistic at the time).

Well, after getting through all of that I was finally able to start on the final animation. Here is the first run through of the animation. Really, it is completely ready to be used as is but it’s still a bit flat and doesn’t have the paper texture or shadows yet. I wanted to make sure the animation worked before doing the final texturing and lighting.

So, a few of hours later (mostly because I really needed to get away from the computer and go for a bike ride) the final animation is complete. I’m quite pleased with the outcome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medical Legal Trial Exhibits: Working with a Medical Illustrator

Why choose a medical illustrator?
Medical illustrators are professional artists with extensive training in medicine, science, communication and media technology and hold advanced degrees from universities affiliated with medical schools. As visualization specialists, they create imagery that advances medical science knowledge and empowers health literacy for patients and the public. They have the medical and scientific knowledge to grasp complex information, distill it down and communicate the story in a clear visual narrative that is accurate, educational and engaging.

“One advantage of presenting demonstrative evidence to a jury is it focuses the jury’s attention in a way oral testimony alone simply cannot. ‘For example, when people are instructed through auditory modality alone, and recall is subsequently tested, they recall about 10 percent of what they heard, in contrast to recalling 85 percent of information presented orally with visual aids.”

Mary Quinn Cooper, Practitioner’s Guide: The Use of Demonstrative Exhibits at Trial, 34 Tulsa L.J. 567, 568 (Spring 1999).

What can a medical illustrator do for my case?
A medical illustrator is able to review depositions, medical records, and medical imaging and translate that information into images that are easily understood by a layperson. A high quality, medical illustration or timeline is an investment in your case. Customized drawings that help a lay person understand what is happening in an x-ray, CT scan, or MRI, and clarify the mechanism of injury, can result in positive outcomes for your clients. Medical illustrations are cost-effective and may be the best investment you make in your case.

An accurate medical illustration, created in cooperation with your physician or expert witness, is more than just a textbook illustration, it becomes a demonstrative used to maximize the value of the case, enhance settlement negotiations, and increase the effectiveness of medical expert testimony.

Why text book images won’t do the job
While anatomical images from text books are great for educating anatomy students, in addition to being copyrighted, they are not always the best way to educate a lay person who will most likely have a much more limited knowledge of anatomy.

A custom medical illustration designed specifically for your case highlights exactly the information that you and your physician want to communicate while eliminating excess labels and non-relevant organs.

The problem with x-rays and other imaging

X-rays, CT Scans and MRIs are great for physicians and their support teams who know what they are looking at, but to the untrained eye they can be confusing. A medical illustrator provides medical film interpretation (Figure 1) to make these images understandable to a lay audience.

Working with a medical illustrator
The best illustrations for your case will be created by a team consisting of the attorney, the physician, and the medical illustrator.
The illustrator needs to know your plan for the case and needs information about the case to be able to understand the injury, the sequence of medical treatment, and the final results. This is usually done by an initial consultation with the attorney and then a review of the medical records, depositions, and any medical imaging that is available. From this, the illustrator determines how best to show the injury to the jury and writes up a proposed list of exhibits which you can discuss with your expert.

“Our firm retained MedDraw Studio in a complex Medical Malpractice case that we were preparing for trial. We needed 2D animations to simplify a difficult physiologic process. Mandy met with us multiple times, reviewed scans and medical records and prepared the highest quality exhibits we could have asked for. The case settled at mediation right before trial with the help of the exhibits she prepared. We will continue to utilize Mandy and I highly recommend her to any litigator, especially those handling medical malpractice cases.”

John G. Kelly Partner: Kelly & Ignoffo Law Group.

Once approved, the illustrator will prepare preliminary pencil sketches for you and your experts to review and sign off on the medical accuracy. A good medical illustration is often a bit of a back and forth process between the attorney, the physician, and the illustrator. Once the physician and the attorney sign off on the sketches, final exhibits will be prepared and delivered in the format you request including exhibit boards and projection files.

Make MedDraw Studio your source for high quality medical exhibits. For a free consultation on your next case, call 614-226-0163 or email MedDrawStudio@Gmail.com

When was the last time someone paid for your signature?

There is the remote possibility that I will burn in Fine Artist hell for saying this but I think Norman Rockwell is the greatest artist ever born. I also like Monet and think Robert Frost is a darn good poet! The thing about Rockwell is…the guy could really tell a story. He was a draftsman, a storyteller, a painter and apparently a shrewd business man. I mean, when was the last time someone paid for your signature?

Medical Illustration often lends itself to pretty straightforward topics. I was kicking around ideas for a piece when Rebecca forwarded me a post on Tumor Paint. I’m not sure if I had been looking at Rockwell’s art lately or where the idea came from but it made complete sense to me. A surgeon painting a brain tumor as a play on a famous Rockwell painting (ok, almost all of them are at least somewhat famous) his Triple Self Portrait.

In this blog I try to show how an idea is developed so here are the planning sketches and work in-progress for this piece.

This is the initial idea concept sketch. These are usually really loose sketches intended to just get some ideas onto paper. Typically I will make a few of these to try out different solutions. This time, I really liked my first idea.

 

Here is a slightly more thought out version adapted to fit onto a particular journal cover.

 

This is a fairly refined pencil sketch. The portrait on the canvas is our babysitter Tatiana and the surgeon is played by medical illustrator John Daugherty (he was my faculty advisor at UIC and he is a good sport). The good folks in surgery at UIC provided all the clothing. First they looked at me like I was nuts… and then they gathered up what I asked for.

 

This is an in progress Photoshop painting from the final. I’ve never done an oil painting technique in Photoshop before but it is kind of fun. Dries a lot faster than real oils!

Eight days later  – the completed illustration and cover mock-up.

How It’s Made

The link between inflammation and depression

One of my favorite shows on TV is How It’s Made. I love the behind the scenes play-by-play they give for everything from apple pies to zeppelins (okay, maybe they have never actually done zeppelins but I did see one on apple pies). I just enjoy seeing the process. So when I received a job last week to illustrate an article about the link between inflammation and depression I thought it would be fun to document all the steps it takes to get to a final illustration.

 

 

 

 

After reading the article the client sent, this is my initial idea sketch. The art director and the editor thought the person just looked bummed out and not really depressed so I played around to come up with a more despondent pose.

 

 

 

 

I liked this one but the side view really led to a pretty flat illustration. I was afraid I would have to spend a lot of effort battling the flatness of the composition to work up a nice final so I kept this one to myself and…

 

 

 

 

I ended up coming up with a 3/4 pose which I thought captured the mood and gave a more dramatic composition. And yes, I scribble a lot when I sketch.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I enlarged some of the pro inflammatory cytokines to give it some more depth. The art director was very happy with this one.

 

 

 

 

 

Next I roughed in the color around the initial scribble…er, I mean sketch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did the drawing of the figure and the circles and scanned both of them in. I kept developing the color in layers. I love Photoshop layers.

 

 

 

 

 

Photoshop layers is probably the greatest gift to artist since paint in a tube. It beats the heck out of traditional airbrushing and oil painting (I’m sure several artist were rolling over in their graves as I wrote that – sorry Leonardo but it’s true). It allows you to try different approaches without destroying the work you have already done.

 

 

 

 

Here I have redrawn, scanned and painted the neuron and cleaned the figure up quite a bit. I have also darkened most of piece to give a more depressive feel. At this point I was getting a bit bummed out and had to go play with the dog for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the last JPG save I did before the final.

I added the areas of inflammation and the brain and if you look real carefully I have pushed back the dendrite coming off of the neuron in the corner above the figures head. Compare it to the image above and you will notice that it doesn’t pop out any longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the sketch for the schematic that will go along with the article describing the mechanism of action.

And below is the final done in Adobe Illustrator. The final is pretty much the same as the sketch but in color. I didn’t have any in between pieces to show you for this. I know, it’s kind of like those old drawing books where they would tell you to draw a circle…and then make it into an owl. Easy.

Anyhow, that’s how it’s made. At least this time.

Not That Kind of Dissection

This is a medical-legal piece showing a dissection of the internal carotid artery. In this instance the word dissection does not refer to cutting something up to study.  Here it is a tearing away of the interior wall of the carotid artery due to a spontaneous or traumatic injury. While once considered uncommon, spontaneous dissection is now known to be a cause of stroke among the middle-aged. Traumatic dissection on the other hand is caused by severe trauma to the head or neck – typically motor vehicle accidents and rapid deceleration but there are documented cases of dissection due to chiropractic adjustments. I actually have a chiro appointment tomorrow morning so let’s hope for the best.

This first sketch is to show normal blood flow through the internal carotid artery.

The second sketch shows a tear in the tunica intima layer of the arterial wall and the resulting thrombus (blood clot) that forms. The artery is made up of three walls. From the inside to the outside they are the tunica intima, tunica media, and tunica adventitia. You can see a detailed sketch of the layers on the first image.

The third sketch shows the emboli that are formed as portions of the thrombus break away and enter the blood flow.

The final sketch shows the emboli making its way to the middle cerebral artery where it will block blood flow to the surrounding brain tissue resulting in stroke.

Here are the layout sketches.

It’s All in the Prep Work

One of my newest works is an eye cross section from above (superior) and from behind (posterior) that I finished a couple weeks ago. I also included the planning sketch. The thickness of each layer is very important to the overall accuracy and a lot of time was spent in the sketching stage to make sure all the proportions were correct. Fun project and I’m pretty pleased with the final. It’s a combination of pencil and Photoshop. All the circles, ovals, and arcs in the final were drawn by hand – tedious work, but well worth the effort.