IF: Refreshing

I did this for Illustration Friday - the topic this week is 'Refreshing.'  And nothing says refreshing like a tasty drink:

And now that it's summer, refreshing drinks are at a premium!  One of my favorites (still) is a nice glass of chocolate milk.

I did this drawing in anticipation of a freelance project i just started.  They want a female character, and so I wanted to get a few drawings of girls in before I did something for them (as all I've been drawing recently is that squatty little dinocorn, Lotzi).

This was done in Adobe Photoshop.

Lotzi: in space

This was created for this week's Illustration Friday topic, "Space."

This is an illustration of Lotzi in Space.  I did the rough drawing and the color in Adobe Photoshop.

I debated about giving him a full space suit - but figured that his tough dinosaur skin would keep his body from being truly affected by outer space.  And then I was thinking about whether or not he needed a pack for oxygen...instead of adding anything like that I decided it could look cool to have a tube that comes towards the viewer and off camera to sort of hint that he's attached to something (like a space ship) just off screen.  And it kept Lotzi from being too junky and busy looking.

Zombie Mario!

I saw someone wearing a t-shirt the other day that said, "GRAINS!" and had a picture of some zombie rabbits.  I thought that was kind of funny, so I thought about what else rhymed with brains and immediately thought of 'drains'.  So that's where Mario comes in.  He's everyone's favorite plumber - and although he doesn't get his due for his work with toilets (heh, toilet dues)...he's-uh the man-uh for-uh the job!

DDRRRrraaaaaaiiinnnnssssss!

So he's either a zombie or he has a secret mushroom addiction...I mean, how else does he see turtles and why would he dress up like a raccoon?

aaaaacccccccccooooorrrrrrrrnnnnnssss!

(doesn't have the same feel)

And, of course, because i mentioned the raccoon costume - I had to draw him in it...

Lotzi: Shiny Box of Coins

I had this idea for Illustration Friday's current topic, 'secret.' 

There's nothing better than finding secret treasure.  Shiny, shiny treasure.

I did this illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

Lotzi: The big chase

I did a drawing of this for Illustration Friday a couple of weeks ago.  It was for the topic 'hurry'.  And nothing makes a fella hurry more than someone else chasing them with the intention of eating 'em.

It was a simpler time back them.  You saw something that you wanted to eat and you just chased them down and went at it....well, there were a lot of things you wanted and all it came down to was whether or not you were quick enough to catch 'em. 

In Lotzi's case...it's not his fault that he's really tasty...luckily for him he has some pretty good cardio.  But with his little legs, it's hard for him to put any space between him and the T-rex chasing him...

Anyway - I did a rough drawing:

And wasn't able to finish it in time for that week...so I let it go - but then I opened it back up and decided to finish it in Adobe Illustrator to see if it'd be worth finishing...and I liked the results...so I took it back into Photoshop to color it.

Lotzi and his shiny horn

Lotzi and his shiny horn...which isn't supposed to light up like that...

I did this piece specifically for Illustration Friday.  The topic this week is 'shiny.'  I drew and colored it in Photoshop.

I changed the colors a little bit and softened the glowing so that the horn would stand out a bit more.  I also deepened the shadows.

microstock report for May 2012

Here's another exciting installment of our microstock report for May!

Shutterstock is terrific.  If it wasn't for them, I don't know if I'd be paying as much attention to the whole microstock business.  This May I ended up posting a lot more files - but apparently I'm terribly out of touch with what sells these days...so I'm going to have to keep stretching that creative muscle and see what I can do for the month of June.

Istockphoto made quite a lot of  money for quite some time...but they changed their licensing payment plan to favor exclusive contributors...and the downloads have slowed to a crawl.  One good thing about the company is that they approve the files in record time.  When I started three years ago it took almost a week to get approved, and now it's within hours.  Too bad none of the files get downloaded.

The rest of the sites had small boosts this month.  I'd like to think that'll continue...but the summer months are very slow...so we'll see how it goes.