My dear boy, do you ask a fish how it swims? Or a bird how it flies? No sirree, you don't. They do it because they were
born to do it. Just like I was born to be a pattern man, and you look like you were born to be a carver.
(bonus points if you know what I'm paraphrasing there)
The specific artistic process sort of comes naturally by now, and it's hard to describe exactly how I draw what I draw. I just draw what I think looks good and will carve well. But if it's of any interest, I can at least tell you the steps involved in bringing a pattern to the site.
- Decide on the subject matter.
- Search for reference pictures.
- Sketch the pattern design loosely at first.
- Restart the drawing several times, after first few attempts are deemed not up to standards.
- Refine the pattern by tracing more cleanly in vector format.
- Print out the pattern full size to gauge its real world carvability. Tweak as necessary.
- Create the print file for the website.
- Create mock-up thumbnails of the design for the site in 4 sizes.
- Upload thumbnails and pattern print files to the server.
- Research the character to come up with some witty description.
- Add pattern info to database, including its name, category, difficulty, description, year and related patterns.
- Add keywords to another database for pattern searching feature.
- Add pattern info/links on the site on 4 pages (patterns main, category sub-page, home page, updates page).
- Upload the new website pages with the new pattern content.
- Click all the newly added links, testing that they connect to the right pattern page.
- Print out the new pattern like a regular member, testing that it prints properly and logs the right info in the user's account.
- Occasionally design a promotional photo manipulation image for the pattern.
- Post a link to the new pattern in the forum.
- Post a link to the new pattern on social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc).
- Announce the new pattern in the Pumpkin Scoop email newsletter.
- Pass out, or drink another Monster energy drink and keep going.
So as you can see, it's quite an assembly line of procedures to bring a new pattern into the collection. The time it takes to draw the actual pattern can vary, and sometimes that part can go surprisingly quickly. But with all the steps involved, taking a pattern from concept to final integrated part of the site is almost guaranteed to take up a healthy chunk of the work day.