Illustration Friday: Expired

This week was a great topic which immediately brought to mind one of my favourite characters: Count Dracula. The ultimate bad guy, who swings between eccentric gentleman and dark, animalistic horror. A truly menacing and terrifying creation he is.

I ended up going with generic vampire as it was easier than trying to portray the Count himself.
Maybe next time.....

Illustration Friday: Subterranean

Originally, I wanted to draw a massive robot in the centre of the earth, hooked up to powerlines running down from the cities. It was too difficult and certainly not something i could churn out in a week.
I thought about what surprising or strange things one might find if one dug deep enough, and variously tried
robots, giant newspaper-reading bunnies, another smaller planet earth, and an upside-down version of the city on the surface.
Inspiration failing and frustration mounting, I went and bought a shovel and started digging in my back
garden. When i finally got there, it turned out that what was lying in wait was the enormous skeletons of
dead lava monsters. Kind of obvious, really.
So that's what I drew.

Illustration Friday: Brave

For this week's IF theme, a Native American brave.

IF: Propagate

This week, a fun experiment for Illustration Friday's topic 'propagate.'

Starting with a small circle in the centre, I worked on only a tiny fraction of the image at a time, allowing each pattern to influence the next to see if a pleasing overall design would be propagated.

It was.

Illustration Friday: Muddy

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

Illustration Friday: Wilderness

I've been face-to-face with a tiger. Yes, it was in a zoo but all that separated us was half a foot and some chicken wire. I could have reached out and touched him. (But i didn't!)

It was genuinely awe-inspiring. And, looking into that face and listening to the thud of its paws against the ground and taking in the smell of him, it seemed clear to me - the tiger does not live in the wilderness, wherever it goes, it takes the wilderness with it.

Illustration friday: Crunchy

Now available in Genuine Meat Flavour!

I spent much longer on this than i usually do for IF drawings. Hours and hours and hours. And I'm not sure why, because the idea didn't even really excite me originally. Still, if it makes a monster happy........