I must confess I wasn’t too inspired by this weeks Illustration Friday word, hitch. Perhaps it was because of this or because I have been busy with other projects that I was very late finishing this up and posting it. Whatever the reason, it’s here now!
Please let me introduce you to Ursus The Terrible and the little hitchhiker….
“Ursus The Terrible And The Little Hitchhiker” by A.R Vincent, copyright 2012
Sometimes working hard to get to the top pays off and sometimes you put in the hours and effort and climb and climb only to find that you aren’t that far from where you started in the first place!
After all the work and time spent on my animation for Why Woodland, the sudden post-contract silence has been surprisingly comfortable. I have found that usually after a big event – exams, launches, deadlines, performances – that the lull that follows, far from being the chance to rest and relax that you’ve been dreaming about through the mounting chaos and excitement, seems to open up around you like a void and leave you feeling restless, angsty and lost. Perhaps I didn’t get that weird discombobulated feeling because once the project was done I dove straight in to other things… one of which was this weeks Illustration Friday.
I really enjoyed working on this illustration for this weeks topic, ‘Heights’, and had tremendous fun getting back to producing things in Photoshop for their own sake rather than to export to Flash or Premiere Pro or After Effects.
I found this weeks IF topic, yield, a really tough one. Everyone I mentioned it to seemed to instantly think crop yield and suggested pictures of corn, wheat or maize, but I just didn’t feel inspired by grain crops! I did have a bunch of ideas that I didn’t really have the time to do justice to (so I’ve put aside for later) and one sci-fi idea that I actually finished working on before I binned because I didn’t like it.
But then, whilst trying to find a blank page in the sketch book, I found a doodle I did ages ago and thus Sparky the dragon was born.
Here he is guarding his treasure, it is the yield from plundering dwarf mines and rich elvish cities… or so he claims. Personally, I think he looks a little to cute to do a whole lot of plundering but perhaps, with dragons, it’s the cute ones you have to look out for!
"Rich Pickings" by A.R Vincent, copyright 2012
It did take quite a while to change dragon doodle in to fully Photoshopped illustration and I confess, as I was trying to do this in my spare time, that I did rush a little towards the end. Still, though he’s not perfect, I’m pretty pleased the result.
“Please -It’s all about popular!It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed, so it’s very shrewd to be very, very popular… Like me!”Lyrics from the musical “Wicked” by Stephen SchwartzHere we are again with the challenge to come up with an image for the Illustration Friday word. I have no doubt that I could’ve done something very edgy for this weeks word, as ‘popularity’ is a real hot topic in these days of celebrity status, reality TV, product placement and social media.
“Popularity” by A.R Vincent, copyright 2012
However, when it came to it I thought that all that seemed too heavy, so I chose a very domestic scenario I encounter everyday! No matter how many unpopular decisions I have made through out the day (even including trips to the vet and vaccuum cleaning) at dinner time all is forgiven. As soon as that tin of cat food is open my popularity among the feline residents of our house goes through the roof… until of course the food is in their bowls, at which point, though all sins may be forgiven, I am once again relegated to servant status and duly dismissed whilst they eat!
The illustration was sketched and inked, then scanned and coloured in my old friend, Photoshop.
