IF FRIDAY: TALENT or As I Like To Call It... Eight Arms To Impress You!
It's Friday! I'll be honest, not that my brain or body knows it... I have been living on borrowed time. In other words, I have been staying up to hours that I have no business staying up to... working, of course. :0) I have been working on several projects simultaneously... the plight of the Artist, right? Among these are several pieces for some Threadless competitions. Also I wanted to do something for IF Friday this week. Tired though I was and still am, I chose to persevere through the week and still participate.
This week's topic is TALENT. At first, I really wasn't being inspired by the topic and then as I was sitting at my desk in the studio, I was flipping through my Idea Journal to see if I could pull anything out of that to use for this IF challenge. I had one of my old promo cards stuck in the Journal. It was a Fatman Illustration, the one of him as an old fashioned Sailor. I remembered that many people fell in love with the octopus character that made her debut in the background of this illustration.
A friend even suggested that I should give the Octopus her own illustration(s). I was immediately inspired to prepare something special for this weeks IF Friday. I thought that the Octopus Character could display her many talents and interests in a vaudeville style kind of performance. I spent a bit more time than I normally do on these illustrations, mainly because I wanted it to be exactly how I would want to present the idea. Not to mention there were several drawing problems to work out before I could make a final sketch to ink then take to full color.First I had to figure out what kind of talents she would have, I then did research as I usually do.
I then developed a very loose thumbnail sketch to kind of figure out a general idea/clue of how I wanted to compose the illustration. I then took that thumbnail sketch and kind of "blew it up" and began to figure out which arms would be doing what and where and just how they would weave in and out of each other. Once these questions were answered and the drawing solutions figured out and drawn out, the illustration at that point tends to kind of draw itself.
I had a lot of fun creating an illustration where the octopus could be upfront and center stage. She has many talents and now she can show you. ;0) As always, I have included some development photos to show my process. I hope you enjoy her and perhaps will be inspired to work on your own special talents. It's Friday, a great day to get out there and do it!
Until next time, have a fantastic weekend, Everyone, and...
Keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing and most important of all, keep making art.
Cheers,
LEWIS
your octopus is such a cute and talented thing :-)
ReplyDeletethanks for the wee digi lesson: i am always amazed what can be done digitally :-)
Amazing!!!
ReplyDelete@ ellistrationfriday: Clever handle, by the way. :0)
ReplyDeletethanks for your kind words. I admit, I am quite fond of this little octopus. She may even find her way on a promo of some sort. FUnny you should comment on my blog, when I looked through the artwork submitted to IF for Talent, your well dressed rhino popped out to me. She is quite remarkable and I thought your illustration was very fun. It made me smile. Wonderful work you do (I checked out your blog).
Yes, it seems the digital age brings a tool that seems to have endless possibility and appears to be limitless. I try to blend the two worlds of traditional and digital in my work in some fashion. I try to show process when I can in this blog. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Once again, thanks for the compliment. :0)
@ Efi Maryeli Thank you. I checked out your blog also. Your work is so lovely. It has a very soft and charming quality that makes you just fall in love with the characters. All the colors are so beautiful. :0)
ReplyDelete