Storked!

More character design work. They wanted a drunken stork, and they wanting him to be reclining back a bit, so he could be leaning on something. Man, I love doing this kind of stuff!

The really interesting thing here is that I did a lot of the research, mental work, and sketching on this guy probably two years ago, for another client. How so? Well, that client wanted me to update a badly drawn character he had, named "Storko", for a line of baby's clothes, I believe. Yeah, I know, real creative name. Unfortunately, I underquoted the job a bit, because at the time I was wanting more character design work, and it seemed like a quick, easy one to do.

Long story short, the guy turned out to be rude, hard to work with, and kept wanting knitpicky revisions on the sketches. He landed up trying to "renegotiate" on the fee we'd already agreed to (which was, again, lower than it should've been). I always get a credit card upfront, but since we were only in the sketch stage, I didn't even charge him. Frankly, I didn't care. I was just ready to be done with him! I've never done this before and wouldn't again. I'd charge his card regardless.

Fast forward to now, (when I do much more of this character design stuff) and THIS job comes in. I quickly resurrected my "Storko" sketches and my reference photos from google, and took off. This guy came out perfect the first time I drew him. The client loved him, paid well, and everyone's happy.

The moral? Keep those old sketches, people! You never know when you'll get to use them. Sometimes old jobs aren't really dead- they can come back to life in another form!

The other moral? Don't work for anyone who wants you to redesign their "Storko" character.

Hey hey, we're the.....

Yep, still slammed around here. Thought I'd share the latest piece for a client. This is for a landscaping company. They're gonna put it on their trucks, shirts, etc., etc. Was a lot of fun to do. Particularly like the crazy monkey on the far right of the piece.

I love drawing monkeys.

Yellow Page Guy!

Here's another new client. Has a biz selling yellowpage ads to people. Wanted his head on a phonebook.

LiveDraws- Hit and Runs

Here's some recent live work again. I have done quite a few tradeshows lately. Clients have been great (two of them tipped me really good), people have loved the drawings. When I have an empty chair for a few moments, though, I have been sketching people at a distance, or at other booths, unbeknowst to them. Then, I'll go over and give them their pic that they haven't even known they were posing for! I call them "Hit and runs". It's a lot of fun for them and me. Plus, the client loves it! I figure I'm being paid to draw, I tell them, so that's what I'm going to do ... no matter what!

"Hit and runs", though, are pretty difficult. For one thing, you have to be fast. People are NOT posing! Also, you get interesting views, gestures, and expressions. As an artist, you get out of your "comfort zone" really quickly doing this. You have to draw people in profile, facing the "wrong" way, in motion, in complicated poses, etc, etc. They really force you to build up your visual library. Here's a few "Hit and Runs" from the past few days...