IF: Craving - Adelia Holds Out!

How does this image fit? Well...let's see. The lil' characters were craving them some cupcakes - but their plan had a serious flaw as none of them match up to Adelia's stature.

The final version of a sketch I did this last weekend for Illustration Friday. I had been hoping to finish it - and I finally did...with a day to spare! The word this week was climbing and I thought of the little square characters I draw and what if they were climbing all over Adelia trying to get at something...I did the sketch last Friday and cleaned it up on Monday. From there I did several revisions (trying to get the character placement right and I also had to correct a lot of the perspective)...I started the color yesterday and today it's finally done!

IF: Climbing - Adelia holds out - clean up edition

I did a sketch of this on friday for Illustration Friday - this is the cleaned up version - after 3 rounds of revisions...gotta get it right....right?  I hope to have it colored some time this week.

IF: Climbing - Adelia holds out...

It's been incredibly busy the last couple of weeks. I made the mistake of telling someone I was blogging all the time - which was probably my downfall. I did this sketch on my wacom (which is a horrible way to sketch...I'd rather use a cintiq or grab some paper and a blue pencil)...but this is what I had in front of me, so I had to use it.

I thought about climbing - and wanted to relate it to my characters...so i thought a cute drawing would be to have Adelia holding cupcakes and the little kids climbing all over her to get at them.

I hope to clean it up and color it soon, but we'll see...there's way too much on my (work) plate...besides cupcakes...

IF: Pale - Adelia: Left out...

Here is my latest piece from Adelia.

Originally Adelia (the little blue penguin character in the foreground) was mostly outside the framing. I just joined a critique group through the SCBWI and it was suggested that I push her back into the frame a bit more. It made for a piece that worked better together...Adelia became a part of the picture once she was contained (mostly) within the frame.  From there I went and colored it:

I then submitted it to the Illustration critique group and got some more feedback.  From this I did a set of revisions - adding flowers to the back hill, desaturating the road (which was getting a little too much attention), adding shadows to the wheels on Adelia's cart (which I just completely forgot about), adding shadow to the flowers themselves (to give them more dimension), shrinking the size of the hill line (as the black line was a little too thick), desaturating the skunk's cart, and finally, saturating the sky and changing the clouds to less sucky ones.  I'd say the old version PALES in comparison to the new and improved version.

I've enjoyed doing all these characters together, and when I have time, I'd like to eventually put a story together around them. As for now, they're just going to help me out as a terribly cute subject matter.

Freelance Illustration - cartoon spec

One thing people in the illustration business have to do from time to time is work spec. I usually don't participate - because a lot of the time one's portfolio should be sufficient to show one's ability to tackle a job. But on occasion, when the job seems like fun (or a great opportunity), I'll work on spec (that means you're doing art for free, with no real guarantee that you've gotten the job. Basically you do the piece or pieces, turn them in, and hope the person or business will hire you). A couple of times it's amounted to nothing - but I've had some really good jobs come out of spec work.

Spec is also something that happens in the animation industry - but they don't call it that - they refer to it as 'testing'. You have to test for storyboarding, props, characters or any other animation job that's available. The worst part is that it's actually more time consuming than working spec in the illustration world...as some tests take an enormous amount of time. I had a friend recently take a storyboard revisions test and ended up having to draw over 70 pages (!). And they gave him a week to do it. It's crazy - but worth it if you get the job.

Anyway - here's the spec I did. I turned it in just a few minutes ago and I'm waiting by the phone...



It's for a cartoon that runs in several locations locally in the southern california area. All of the characters are copyright America's Kid Times. This cartoon (above) would run in February (I was going for a valentine's day theme). I did the original sketch in photoshop, and then cleaned it up on a different layer (also in photoshop).

IF: Contained - Eaten! Vector vinyl toy design

Basically if I was to create some vinyl toys. These are (currently) my dream toys. see through blobs monsters with cute dead forest creatures inside.

Here's a close up of the cute little animal:

These sorts of illustrations are why I changed my blog name to the Heebeejeebees. And while I have to do promotional pieces that can help me book jobs, I also have 'resolved' to do drawings like this. And, who can say, maybe I'll be able to make these into toys at some point...

This is the cute little skunk contained in the belly of a tentacled blob monster.

IF: Resolve

It's my second IF: resolve post. I drew two sketches - one of Adelia and one of this little girl. Both had a 'look to the future' kind of resolve to them. That's right, even the little girl with her eyes closed was 'looking' to the future.

I did several sketches of luggage and went with the classic look.

I did the organic shape under her so I could use the wand tool to select that area. I had an idea of making it a sidewalk she was standing on...but as a vignette. I figured that just a sidewalk would be boring...and the organic shape made it interesting.

This was the longest color job I've done in Photoshop in quite a while. It's a lot harder to do human skin color than penguin or weird blobby creatures. And I tried to put a lot more texture in the clothes/hair/ground. It took a while, but I really like how it turned out.

Anyhow - I think it's a good start to the new year.

IF: Resolve - Adelia's resolve for the new year...

I can't believe it's already 2009! I did a couple of sketches that I did a couple of days ago that I really liked. The first is this one of Adelia:

It's all a mish-mash of figuring out the hands, the body and the characters. I cleaned it up in Illustrator and then had to completely redraw the body and feet because it was in the wrong perspective. I was also tinkering with the scarf because it wasn't feeling right hanging off the side like that. I did a couple of rounds of revisions and then re-cleaned it up.

This piece started off as Adelia, bags packed, steady resolve, and ready for the new year. Somewhere the bags were lost (they ended up in the other sketch I did, which I'll be working on next) but since they were unnecessary, I decided to leave them off.

Also - it seems that the second I changed my blog name to the Heebeejeebees I stopped drawing things that would fit (such as the cute animal eating blobs). I'll be bringing those back eventually - but for some reason when I put pencil to paper it always ends up with some sort of cute nonsense. Anyhow - I like how this turned out. I tried a bit of a background behind them, but liked the blank canvas (with just a shadow underneath them, so they're not just floating in space). It sort of sets the mood for this new year - a clean slate. or something...

IF - Adelia: vs. the stinky sock

Hello! First post of the new year!

clan·des·tine (kln-dstn):

"Kept or done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose."

Because, you know, Adelia isn't on the way to the hamper...

I've been working on this since last year! This was a sketch I did at the bookstore a couple of days ago. I spent all day yesterday (the 31st) working on a freelance project and I needed to do something fun...so I took this out of my sketchbook and went to work on it.

I really liked how the one hand (not the one holding the sock) turned out. Just a couple of years ago I used to really struggle to draw hands (and I'm still learning) - but I'm coming along quite well...

This was the first version I painted in Photoshop (or should I say colored in photoshop? I guess it amounts to the same thing, but it sort of feels like 'painted' sounds more like what an artist would do and colored would be something a kid would do with crayons...probably doesn't matter)...

but as I cleaned up the drawing I thought about another way Adelia could be holding the sock - it would make more sense, if it really was that bad, to not make skin contact. And then it meant redrawing and recleaning up and then repainting her right arm and the sock. I think the arm and especially the sock are a little bit more dynamic.

I felt this piece fell under the clandestine Illustration Friday topic because one doesn't just waste a stinky sock. One battles it for supremacy and then uses it for secret nefarious purposes. But, with such a pungent stinky sock, those purposes aren't secret for long. Anyhow - see ya next Illustration Friday!