Step 1. At this stage I have to emphasise that this is not photo retouching. Although I use the clients photo of the cone as my reference there is no element of the illustration which contains a part of the original photo. It's 100% illustration.

I begin by outlining all the elements in the photo with the pen tool. Concentrating on getting the perspective right and making sure that all the elements interact correctly. There's a lot of creative license involved here and if in doubth the golden rule is to make it up, not leave it out.

Then I activate the path and start painting within the form using the airbrush tool.

Ice Cream Cones