The historic Fox Theatre in Detroit is having new marquee signage installed on their building but they wanted it to look like their existing trademark signs (which include griffins). My job was to recreate the linework that is seen on those original griffins. Hopefully I will get some of the install pictures to post here later.
To start I was given a scan of the original sketch and photos of the current signs, which had changed a bit from the original sketch. Using pencil and paper, I recreated the black linework.
Then with tracing paper I made an additional drawing for the blue line details in the wing.
I cleaned up my linework in Photoshop and brought it into Illustrator to become vectorized. This is what it looks like with the colors approved by Fox Theatre.
I had to tweak the linework a bit so that it would follow the neon as neon tubing is a bit more limited in how it can curve and bend.
Here is the left griffin standing approximately 14 feet tall with the neon in place. You can see the additional neon that will allow the wing to appear animated.
A detail of the right griffin (sorry for the angle but these guys are tall!)
Hopefully I will get some of the install pictures once these guys make it up on the building.
