A quick heads up to let you guys know that the “Character Design Sketching Approaches” post I put together for the awesome new Creative Sessions blog by the Envato team is up for your viewing pleasure.
The first Creative Session focuses on Character Design, and VectorTuts editor Sean Hodge approached me to author a post. Instead of a walkthrough, I thought it would be great to scratch one of my favorite itches: seeing other artist’s sketch process from rough to final.
This cartoon octopus character was created for a client developing a new baby product to help with diaper rash.
Believe it or not, I had not drawn a cartoon octopus until this project, so I was looking forward to it. I will say that I underestimated the amount of work all those tentacles and suckers were.
This cartoon dog news reporter — “News Hound” — was created for an upcoming iPhone news app. The client was pretty specific in what they were looking for: a 1940’s era news reporter, but of course a dog instead of a human.
This cartoon monk character holding a beer mug was created as a mascot for a St. Patrick’s Day promotion by national chain of Irish-themed sports pubs, Tilted Kilt.
I was approached by the marketing director who found and liked my cartoon illustration of a monk leaning on a beer keg, and wanted something in the same style, but of course their own original character.
This cartoon bear as lumberjack character design was created as part of a logo design for hand-crafted wood furniture maker Wissota Woods.
The client approached me on this project wanting a lumberjack character, but also wanting something a bit different. Bears are a fixture in his state of Wisconsin near Lake Wissota, so we ran with that.
This cartoon astronaut with a cake spaceship was a fun t-shirt design. It was created for the annual Houston, Texas cake trade show & expo “That Takes The Cake!” hosted by Capital Confectioners.
Here’s a wild project I recently completed – Belt-Fed Baby!
The client was the owner of a gun shop, and he always used the pun of referring to himself as a “belt-fed baby” (as opposed to a “bottle-fed baby”), playing on the belt-fed aspect of machine guns.
I loved the juxtaposition of the cute baby and the giant machine gun, although I am sure there are some out there who will be up in arms over the design.
Followup video of the cartoon gorilla character demonstrating the color, shading and highlight additions to the character.
The video showing the creation of the vector line art can be found here.
Check out the final cartoon gorilla character art on my portfolio site.
Video from recent Ustream live broadcast featuring initial vector line art creation for a cartoon gorilla character design.
I also briefly discuss Adobe Illustrator template setup and usage at the end of the video clip.
The vector art color, shading & highlighting video can be found here.
Check out the final cartoon gorilla character art on my portfolio site.