SockNessie Has Been Sighted.

February 25, 2013

SockNessie Has Been Sighted.

Just a bit of what I have been working on. I am working on a a few different works for some competitions for Threadless.com. This particular entry was for Threadless's Original Monsters Challenge.

I went through Several different ideas for the challenge: The Abominable ToeJam, The WereGoose, The ToothScary, Democrans and Republicrats (inspired by Ani Difranco's poem Serpentine) and the Lost Laundry Monster which evolved into the SockNess Monster. I approach the Threadless Challenges similar to how I approach Illustration Friday Challenges. I try to keep the ideas, the sketches and the final art loose, fresh and fast. This is usually how I am able to fit them in amongst other projects, plus it allows 100% creative freedom and is a really good exercise in meeting quick deadlines but still producing quality work.

Like I usually do, I start with research. I researched reference material for all the Monster Ideas I had, and had sketches for a few besides Sock Nessie.

As you can see from some of the initial quick sketching, that SockNessie really, more or less "arose" to the surface and became the star of this art challenge.

After re-working the idea of the washing machine scene and changing the composition to something a bit more dynamic that really featured the main subject, SockNessie, but also adding motion to the composition.
I kept the detail of the Gum Wrapper Boat to still try and imply that this scene may take place in the washing machine, but the setting was really superfluous at this point in the project.

I then Inked the sketch trying to keep the lines fluid and fresh like the sketch and then scanned in the final inked drawing. Did a little "cleanup" (get it laundry joke, har har) and then ran the inked illustration through my vectoring program as the final Illustrations for Threadless need to be vector artwork. Pulling the vectorized drawing into my chosen vector software (no commercial pug here) ;0)

I then utilized a really cool new art book I purchased in the past few months. The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations is really neat and I recommend it for really design and illustration projects with very tight deadlines. It basically spans time chronologically by the art of advertising and poster making form Victorian to Present day and breaks down color trends and combinations popularly used in each time period.

It's unique and really cool and I was curious as to how I could apply it to some of my work, so I decided SockNessie would be my little experiment. I chose a color combination swatch from the Victorian Time period and applied it to my illustration. I even used the book's color combination suggestion to select my shirt color. I did in the end tweak the exact colors just a bit. By tweak, I mean I used tints of the colors and opposed to the 100% natural color value for them. I have to say the results are quite successful.

I then put together the submission display. Using a cute font I manipulated it to how I wanted and displayed the 5-Color diagram below. I thought buttons would be a cute way to display the diagram. Displaying the screen color diagram in a clever or fun way is kind of a tradition I have seen on countless Threadless submissions.

SockNessie is still looking for your support as well as your left socks. She can always use all of the SOCKPPORT that you can give her by voting for her. You can get there by double clicking the below photo. If you don't have a Threadless Account, it only takes a few short minutes to create one. You can then vote for SockNessie as well as all of the wonderful design competitions. You would also need a Threadless account should you decide to buy something you like while visiting the website, and trust me, there is always something nice to buy on Threadless.

http://www.threadless.com/originalmonsters/the-sockness-monster/

I am currently working on another submission as well as some reference on this weeks IF Friday illo challenge tonight. Thanks again EVERYONE who showed and continue t show SockNessie your love. She appreciates it and so do I. THANKS! :0) As usual, the step-by-step process for SockNessie is below. Check it out!

till next time...
Keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing and most important of all, keep making art.
Cheers,
LEWIS