Can I get a Paw...?

I've been thinking of doing a series of these for a while now - and I thought I finally had time to get one of them.  There are so many options for this parody of the iconic Jaws poster, and I know a lot of people have done Jawas - but I still would like to do my take on that...but first, I give you PAWS!

Adventure Time Fan Art

I was working on an Adventure Time illustration (fan art) and did a really cute version of Fin...but every time I drew Jake, it felt like I just drew the character that the show already designed...so I kept drawing him until I came up with a few versions that I really liked:

So one of these will be plopped into my Adventure Time illustration and I can finally finish it up.  Because it's been sitting unfinished for almost 3 weeks now.  And it needs to be finished so I can move on to something else.

My favorite is the bottom one on the left...but the one that fits the illustration the best is the one on the bottom right.

Jake!

I'm working on an adventure time piece, and drew this Jake...I think it looks too much like their version...and I'm trying to do my version of it - so I have to go back to the drawing board...

Why does he have a tiny hand?!?!?  Curses.

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:

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.

A boy and his puppy

This is another illustration that I did for Dreamstime.  I had an idea to draw a kid with big round eyes getting a puppy on Christmas so I drew this on my wacom tablet using Adobe Photoshop:

What's great about using Photoshop is that you can easily lighten and darken the lines and work on separate layers to quickly and easily draw and edit.  What isn't so great is using a wacom tablet to do it.  But it still gets the job done - because it's just a sketch that I transported to Adobe Illustrator (in stock image sites like Dreamstime, they always like photographs and vector drawings...vary rarely will a raster illustration do as well).

I might have made the eyes too big and round...but he looks happy (if slightly alien).  Anyhow - I wanted to do a very subtle background, so all of that color (not the ornaments) is a gradient mesh with a few lines for the fireplace.