Kid in a Frog Hat

Why are kids in frog hats so cute?  And why are there so many hats out there (these days) that have animal faces?  They look horrible on regular people...just incredibly dorky - but you strap one of these on a little kid and suddenly even the ugly ones are sorta cute....

And then you get a hat on a cute kid and watch out!  You'll go home and punch your own kid for not trying hard enough.

I was drawing a lot of scary looking characters (a toy line I'm working on) and somehow this drawing found it's way into the mix.  I thought it'd be funny to create a line of cool toy monsters in those blind boxes (where you buy one in a toy line, but you don't know which one you'll get until you open the box)...and every once in a while you'll get this little girl toy which would be the completely opposite of every other toy.

One day that'll happen, and it'll be funny...unless you're the boy that opens the box...

Scary designs!

I'm teaming up with a couple of other talented folks to create some vinyl toys.  This is one of my concepts that we're thinking about..

I transferred it (from Adobe Illustrator) to Photoshop to do a color version:

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.

New character closeups....

I did this illustration of Adelia and a panda walking by a snowy winter scene. These were the characters in the background. They're based on little toy designs I had thumbnailed.

I did add small stubby arms on a couple of the characters (the panda, and the pigs) to make the scene work better. I liked the idea of the pigs skating and the little boy pig scared and trying to stay upright.

I was trying to develop the illustration so that way each of the different elements/characters could all be a self contained drawing. I think they work quite well individually, but when I look at the entire picture, it seems a little empty...

But that's why I seperated them, so individually they can be enjoyed as (hopefully) solid drawings.

More cute little vinyl toy designs

I wasn't done working on these. Here are 4 more. I tried to do a cute little whale, and I was having a heck of a time with it - it just did not look right! And then I realized that it was probably because whales don't have feet...