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Sunday, November 13, 2005

Illustration Friday - Strength

One thing I'm loving about Illustration Friday is that its got me drawing even when I'm not working on a paid assignment. Its scary how you can fall into that rut. And seeing all the incredible concepts and executions of the other folks who participate has inspired me to put everything I've got into my own humble efforts.

This week's topic was "Strength', which immediately got me thinking of doing a cheese-headed man in honour of Jon Scieszka's "The Stinky Cheese Man" - a perennial fav around our place at bedtime when our guys were growing up.

But thoughts of strong cheese lead me to think of mice - or "meeses", as in "I HATE MEESES TO PIECES!"

Meeses may be small, but they can be mighty. Remember "The Mouse that Roared"?

So I started a sketch in my new favourite program, Painter, of an army mouse with several "kills" marked on his helmet...

I even started to take it to colour.

But then it occured to me that I could do so much more with the concept. So I did a revised sketch...

In the back of my mind was the always excellent art of Jamie Hewlett, of Tank Girl fame ( and more recently and more famously, The Gorillaz ). I've always loved the grittiness and mischievous attitude Hewlett embues his work with, and tried to capture a bit of that quality. After much futzing and struggling ( because I really don't understand this program yet ) I got this little feller to emerge:


I gotta give a big shoutout to Penelope Dullaghan for starting the amazing and wonderful I-Fri. Much respect P!

9 comments:

Todd DeWolf said...

Ok- loving tank mouse to bits! Great that you showed your talented self here-excellent progression. And now I am in the mood for Lane Smith! Cheers!

carla said...

Great process! And...I love your killer mouse. He's a secret weapon:>

Catnapping said...

excellent work, including the empty casings. good stuff, here.

love the expression on the devil-mouse's face.

Drazen said...

great work Leif
and very funny.

Unknown said...

Nice character design!

Doug said...

thanks for the comments on my blog! Your work is inspirational. I like the way you show the thinking and preliminary work along with the final piece.

René Milot said...

Love what you're doing with Painter: think of where it is going to take you: granted it takes a bit of getting use to: but the possibilities are great!

letile said...

thanks for the comment!
I will let you know if my monsters take a life of their own and become something new.
Your work is great- I do like the sketchbook very much.

katzdontbark said...

i love tank mouse...hope to see more and would like to add you to my links...