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.

Lotzi: GHOSTS!!!

I did this for Illustration Friday. There's a show on tv where a couple of fraidy guys walk into 'haunted' houses and then proceed to scare themselves silly.  I don't watch the show because it's ridiculous.  And if there really was a ghost (or in this case three) you'd high tail it out of there.

Hurry up and get out of there!

I did the illustration in Photoshop.  It was based on this quick sketch:

Lotzi is faded...

I drew this for Illustration Friday - this week the theme is 'faded'.  I was toying with the idea of a ghost...and then possibly dreams...but then my wife said that faded would be someone who drank too much...

That made more sense, so I went with it.  This is a character we're developing named Lotzi.  Let's say he's getting faded on too much rootbeer...

 He's a lightweight like me.  Two beers (rootbeer, remember?) and it's time to make best friends with the sidewalk in an alley somewhere.

One thing they've been doing in animation these days is steering the artists to use a cintiq to draw.  The best part is how easy it is to edit your drawings...one downside (and this is why I've been doing more drawings this way than by passing them through Illustrator like I usually do) is that drawing on the screen doesn't have the same feel as drawing on a piece of paper.  It's just a matter of getting used to (as sometimes there's a little bit of a delay...), so I just continue to work at it.

IF: Kernel three times

This week's Illustration Friday topic was Kernel.

It was a hard topic and it took me this long to finally decide that I wanted to attempt it.  And even though it's Thursday afternoon, and the week is almost at a close, I finally got my concept figured out and decided to post these drawings:

This is what gave me the most trouble - kernel conjures just one thing in my head...and that's a popcorn kernel.  It seemed like such a mundane thing to draw, so I held off.  But then I thought of a little word play and continued on with the next two drawings.

and that one led to this one:

Pixel Art Pets

I've switched gears a little bit in they style of stock illustrations I'm doing.  I've always enjoyed pixel art (or at least had an appreciation for it) since the time of the original Nintendo video games.  You have a very limited palette in which to convey your illustration.

I started with a page of fruit:

and then I moved on to pets.  First i drew a puppy:

And then drew this picture of a kitten based on Raimi, our little runt of a cat:

Microstock report for April 2012

This is our microstock report for April of 2012.  It was a bit of a downturn in all the stock sites, so towards the end I did one quick illustration...and I'll try to come up with some more this month to see if we can't turn those numbers around a bit.

Shutterstock still leads all the stock sites in how many sales we get each month - which translates into the highest earnings.

Istockphoto is really taking a turn for the terrible - as I can't remember the last time we made that little since we started.

 Dreamstime is slowly creeping up on Istock and could end up being our #2 lifetime earner soon enough.  It's still not too high, but it consistently makes between $20 and $40 a month.  And because of the image contest they do every month, I always want to create something for it, so we've ended up with a lot of exclusive files that sell at a higher price point on this site.

 This was the one new file I did for the stock sites...I'll try to do more spot illustration type drawings and we'll see if they sell or not.  It's feeling a little too much like clip art...

Adelia: Space

Illustration friday had the subject of "Space" this week...so I thought I'd revisit an old character to participate.

I did a quick rough in Adobe Photoshop:

and then decided to do the entire cleanup and color in photoshop as well (instead of importing it into Illustrator like I usually do).  And this is the final:

I always liked to use specific colors with Adelia (this character).  She's a little blue penguin and she loves the color purple...so it would make sense for her to hop around this low gravity moon.

Dreamstime contest: Pretty in Pink

This month Dreamstime has designated "Pretty in Pink" as their next contest topic.

I started with this rough that I did in Adobe Illustrator:

There were a couple of directions I thought I could take it...so I printed it out and revised it in red and then blue pencil (the red to figure out my lines, and then the blue to finalize them):

I ended up really liking the little girl thinking about flowers - Once I scanned it back into Illustrator and cleaned it up and colored it, I decided it didn't need the flowers to be pink.  So I submitted it as is:

Microstock Report for March 2012

Here's our microstock report for March of 2012:

We were busy working on other projects once again, so we didn't add any new files this last month.

Shutterstock is still the best at consistently selling our illustrations.  A couple of months ago I decided to start posting the lifetime earnings of each of the sites.  I feel like it's one thing to tell people you can make money creating stock images, and another thing to actually state the numbers.  I've uploaded my illustrations to have this be a passive income (meaning that I don't really actively create and upload new images on a consistent basis), so it's fantastic to make between 200 and 300 dollars a month on something I'm barely paying attention to. 

On the other hand, some of the sites are suffering because of it.  Istockphoto used to reach almost $100 (if not more) each month.  That's reflected in the lifetime total earnings, but also in the fact that it now makes less than Dreamstime each month.

Some of these sites continue to make money...others, such as Crestock, have yet to get off the ground and probably never will.  In March I signed up for a new site called DrawShop.  I've heard the sales aren't the best, but they have the possibility to do custom jobs, so I wanted to see how that would play out.  I've only uploaded 65 files...

Lil' Fincher

A quick drawing of our little cat Fincher.  He's a long hair nutball.  And he likes to sit in the sun.

A boy and his dog

I did this illustration for Dreamstime's latest contest:

Dreamstime is a microstock site - where they license photographs and illustrations.  And while i have every intention of winning this contest...it's usually the photographs that dominate.  There are a select group of artists that submit illustrations to the contest, but it's few and far between that any of us have won.

The payoff for just entering is still worth it - if this file is ever licensed (and my past entries have been a few times), they sell for more - on the low end the price can go from 36 cents to $1.26.  So it's a good incentive to participate.

The contest this month is "children with pets."  It's important to be one of the first entries (the contest started on friday) so you get more eyeballs on your piece.  I submitted it Friday night and as of Sunday, I'm still waiting to have the illustration approved...

This illustration was drawn in photoshop, but cleaned up and colored in adobe illustrator.  Microstocks like Shutterstock, Istockphoto, and Dreamstime sell more vector files than any other form of illustration.  So it pays to work in that media.

Microstock report for February 2012

Here's the fancy microstock report for February 2012!

I started last month by including the lifetime totals each site has brought me.  I've been selling my illustrations through microstock sites since February 2009 - so it's been 3 years and it's brought a total of $11,744.67 since the beginning.  It might sound like a big number - but it's just about $3900 a year of extra income.  What's nice about it is that I don't spend much if any time at all these days creating new illustrations.

In February I uploaded this image and two others compositions using the same laptop icons:

Shutterstock is the best site to upload files to.  Like all of the microstock sites, you have to sign up and upload several images that they'll evaluate to see if the work is good enough.  Shutterstock makes you upload 10 images for evaluation and you pass if 7 or more are approved.  Other sites vary as well as the time it takes to approve images.  Istockphoto has the hardest process to pass (even though they only evaluate three files), and I didn't get approved the first two times I tried (because of open paths).

Anyway - Stock Illustration sites are a good source of extra income - and it all depends on how much or little you put into creating new files and creating good files.  When we first joined, we aggressively uploaded and posted our biggest monthly numbers...since then we've uploaded about 1 or so files a month and average $250-$300 a month.

The line of "All Other Stock" refers to Stockfresh, Veer, and Thinkstock which are all sites that I signed up with later on and which don't sell too much between the three of them...I might just add Crestock to that mix as the income from that site is very minimal.  The lifetime earnings from "All Other Stock" are boosted by Stockxpert which was sold to Istockphoto and shut down (but not before I made $300 there).

more t-shirt designs!

My wife and I collaborated on these designs.  What that means are these were her ideas, her drawings, and I helped out a tiny bit (and she made me upload them to the site).

For the final t-shirt design we decided to lose the balloon as we wanted to make a clean and simple design that appealed to both men and women and felt the balloon 'babied' it up:

Please vote for this design by clicking this link to Deviant Art and then clicking "I'd wear this"

And then she drew this:

Which we turned into this design:

And this is what it looks like on the t-shirt:

And vote for this one too!  There's no limit to the amount of different t-shirts you can vote for...but I'd appreciate the votes for ours!  Make sure you use this link to Deviant Art and click "I'd wear this"

Thanks!

Deviant Art: Cute Monster T-shirt Contest

Click here to vote for my t-shirt design!  Click on "I'd Wear This" to vote.  My design will only be capable of winning if you vote!  You have to be a member of Deviant Art to vote - but it's well worth it!  So come on...what do you say?

A friend of mine told me about this contest that Deviant Art was holding (the deadline to enter ends tonight at midnight).  I did a bunch of quick roughs:

But I didn't like how any of them turned out so I kept trying and did a series of really terrible drawings that I won't post here...but then I drew this one...and while it's still kind of wonky...it demanded that I finish it:

and that led to finishing it in Adobe Illustrator.  I did the drawing as I wanted to finish it (the one on the left) and then because the rules of the contest strongly suggested that the illustrations be confined to 7 colors (which is easier for them to print) I changed my color palette to comply.

The color swatches at the top are all the colors in the drawing...my original finished piece had 13 colors, so I had to really pare it back to get it to seven.

And this is how it looks if it was on a t-shirt:

My friend, Leonard Dill,  also entered the contest - His illustration is almost as good as mine (and some would say it's better) - Click on his name and also vote for him!  Do your good deed for the day...or two good deeds...don't be lazy, it's totally worth it!  Here's his t-shirt design: