Birthday drawing....

It was somebody's birthday today - so I thought I'd draw them something.  It's funny because if someone asked me to draw something I'd be hesitant and drag my feet, but sometimes an idea hits me and I want to get to it before anything else.

It's just a quick sketch - but this person really likes mermaids - and collects all sorts - so I thought I could do something mermaidy for them.

IF: Carry

This week's Illustration Friday Theme was Carry.  I thought a good way to tweak the topic would be to do a drawing of the Stephen King horror movie Carrie.

I did two versions.  This first one is the pg-13 version.

This is the R rated one:

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.

Nightmare before Christmas Girl

Tim Burton's artwork was on display up until last month in Los Angeles.  There were drawings from his childhood, random sketchbooks and each of his movies.  One of his most prominent motifs are stripes.

I've had Nightmare before Christmas in my head for the last month.  It's not just that it was the season for it - but my wife, a couple of friends, and I made Nightmare before Christmas costumes for our company costume contest (our group won for best entertainment characters).  I still have to post the pictures of the costumes, but in the meantime I've had this illustration of a girl in cute hats and I wanted to do a Jack Skellington version:

I thought the girl looked a little too cute with that hat, so I thought I'd see about pushing it a little further...like if she was stitched together like Sally (from the movie).

That's probably a little too stitchy though, so this is my final version:

cute and scary - and I thought I could make it a little more Tim Burtony and goth by giving her a desaturated skirt and matching striped scarf.

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...

Kid in frog hat head

I'm working some toy designs...this is one of the first thumbnails that I wanted to finish up:

I haven't finished coloring the body, but I'm currently working on it...

Girl on Bike revision

This is the rough revision of the girl on a bike drawing:

There were a few things I thought I could add to better round out the drawing.  I also wanted to use this as a test for the brand new red pencil refills I just got (I usually use blue, so it's nice to have the variety.

Also - I wanted to add some wonkiness to the tires (as they were just round circles in the original drawing)...and in Illustrator I can just copy and paste the front tire to the back, so I didn't bother drawing them both in.

Microstock Report for April 2011

I can't believe it's already may!  This marks the second month into our 3rd year of selling microstock.  I should check to see how much we've made collectively up until this point...but in any case - here's the information about April:

Everything took a downward tumble this last month - which is weird because April has usually been one of our better months...One part might be the fact that we haven't been adding new files/illustrations to our microstock portfolios...so we'll see if we can't change that in the coming months...

Shutterstock stayed on top...

123RF made a push into the top 4...which marks the first time it's been that high on the chart.  The listing of 'all other stock' includes freshstock, veer, and whatever stockxpert turned into.

Still, as I always say - it's nice that we haven't done any, or that much, work and we're still pulling in about 300 dollars a month!

This is the one file I added this month: