Sneaky

The enigmatic Bigfoot.  Why is it that Bigfoot still continues to elude us?  Could it be that Bigfoot is trained in some sort of Japanese art of stealth?  Could it be that Bigfoot is actually a ninja!?

Now, finally, the world has proof.

This is for a contest over at Illustration Friday.  The topic for this week was "Sneaky".

Seinfeld Cast

Playing catch-up with some of my older illustrations.

For this drawing I wanted to do caricatures by slightly abstracting full figures, and not just faces.  I figured the cast of Seinfeld would give me an interesting assortment of body shapes and character traits.  That and I couldn't resist drawing Elaine doing the little kicks dance.

Hillbilly Swamp Monster

I had to take a little brake from the ABC book I have been working on for my niece, and decided to do a quick monster sketch, which turned into a much larger project.

I haven't shaded a drawing with pencils in ages. I always do everything digitally.  So I figured it would be fun to break out the old blending stumps and really render a drawing traditionally.  

The first version I sketched out didn't exactly look right, so I redid the design a bit, and did some pencil shading.

After that I added some colors, and called it good.

Name Ambigram

At first I didn’t know what to call this.  I didn’t think it was an ambigram, but I guess they don’t have to spell the same thing both ways.
If you look at it one way it spells my name/Anna’s name, and if you turn it 180 degrees it spells Anna’s name/my name.  Just playing around to see if I could do it.  I know it seems awfully mushy, so I was thinking we should get them engraved on brass knuckles.

Tiki Monsters

Earlier this spring Anna and I were chatting about possible illustrations and came up with the idea of doing tiki interpretations of figures in popular culture.  While chatting about candidates for tiki-ification I drew up a quick sketch of Slimer that I later decided to add color to.
I used the Slimer design as an excuse to experiment with Illustrator, which I had never used before.  And to think that I thought Photoshop was confusing!  Poor Anna had to hear me screaming and cursing through the whole process.  I do really like that vector images can be exported from Illustrator into Photoshop while retaining the layers though, which was absolutely necessary for this project.

                       

I drew every shape in Illustrator, then exported them to Photoshop where I did the shading, overlaid a woodgrain texture, and threw in a drop shadow to add a bit more layering (and because drop shadows are sooo in this year).

I followed the same process for a series of nostalgic latex monstrosities from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Stripe from Gremlins

 

The Xenomorph from Alien and Predator from Predator

Edit (2014): I created papercraft versions of these designs which I hung a ribbon on (so they can be used as an ornament) and then laced that ribbon through a card (so it can also be used a greeting card). They are currently on sale at our Etsy store. Here's a sample of them -

Follow the link to our store to see more!