Yesterday I completed the more-difficult-than-expected task of selecting a number of images to feature in my portfolio. I set a limit of ten images and tried to gather a set of images that gave a rounded representation of what I can do.

While trawling through work recent and old, I found a number of pictures that never got the chance to see the light of day. Here’s a few that I rather like.

There’s plenty more! When I started this blog I had an idea of diving into old work to examine what I’ve been doing in the past. Maybe this is the start of bringing that idea to life.

Y’know I think I’ve attempted something like this a few times before but this time I was a bit more persistent and I’m pleased with the result so far.

Here’s the “thumbnail”.

I had fun with the scratchy shading.

Next: to work out the background! While I’m in a persistent mood I’ll tackle that important element I always avoid…

Maybe this will become a fully fledged picture?

The goal here was to have some interesting action with the character but to not lead the viewer’s eye ‘out’ of the image, rather, have their eye land back in the focal points of the image.

Ready to inflict some inJURIes. Hurr Hurr.

To be honest, I like the way that outstretched leg looks… even though it leads the eye out of the picture frame. I had experimented with tipping her toes to bring the flow of the image back towards the middle but that made the foot look a little odd. So, forcing the viewer’s eye back onto the image might not be the right approach. What do you think?

Character development and design:

EDIT: Very first draft added.

The first draft - all I had in mind was the pose

"Huh?"

Basic colour decisions - lots of pink!

I wanted to make her a blonde bimbo but apparently being cliche is dull.

Lots of charm, not so much going on upstairs...

Missing one image here actually, I’ll edit it in later if I can find it.

A quickish sketch done on my very speccy new toy.

Whee!

Drawing faces from low angles is tricky – in some ways the cartoon style amplifies the trickiness because direct photo reference isn’t as useful. Also I did kind of change gears halfway through so the face styles are different.

I really like her foot on the right… but I ruined it when I connected it to her leg. A few hits and misses throughout this picture – all part of a learning experience.

Started drawing a few of these last year, have continued at a slower pace this year. As you can see, I’ve started with the obvious: Eeveelutions, a bunch of starters (Cyndaquil and Totodile to come), Pikachu and Meowth, and uh, a duck. I like ducks, okay?

I’m hoping to print these off as fridge magnets. As soon as I can fill a page of them. (For reference, these are currently filling about a third to a half of an A4 page). They’re going to be totally rad and will stick to your fridge.

The four in the top right were done much less recently than the rest.

Each critter is inked digitally, then the lineart is enlarged by running it through a bitmap-to-vector converter. Some simple colours are thrown on, and voila! It’s done.

Since I’m planning to do more, I’d love to hear suggestions of which other Pokémon I should try. Let me know in the comments!