There are many businesses offering to produce stylised portraits, that do little more than pass the original photograph through a series of image filters - literally a process that can be carried out on most home computers.

Our portraits start as a blank sheet of paper, onto which your photograph is hand drawn in ink by one of our illustrators. The drawing is scanned and digitally redrawn (again, by hand) with the addition of facial features, fine detail and tonal areas. Colours are then sampled from the original photo to apply to the skin and hair. An image filter IS then used to add a Ben-Day dot effect to create shadow areas. Finally, where required, a suitable background is incorporated to make the portrait really stand out.

The finished portrait is testament to the illustrator's skill and experience, and is something that he will not allow to be seen by the customer until he is totally happy with it himself.