Giant Squid

Hope your summer is going great so far. Mine is! Lots to do as usual.

Here's an image (well, two, one sketch and one cleaned-up drawing) that I am particularly pleased with. It is an artists impression of a deep sea squid. The reason that it is an "artists impression" is that there are very few photographs of deep sea squids. And even if live specimens are caught sometimes they often look terrible (sludgy and deflated) because their bodies are made to exist in the high-pressure zone of deep, deep sea.

It is perhaps going to be reference material for a tattoo hence me using a combined line-and-red-shading style of drawing. I tried to capture the movement of a swimming sea squid based on the fins in this photograph:
http://www.indiastudychannel.com/pictures/gallery/gangarajuchalapathi__73strange%20photos%20bizarre%20sea%20creature%20caught%20part%20squid%20part.jpg

Roooooooowr!

Excerpt from my sketchbook. Angry, angry, bear. I was just curious as to what makes and angry bear (grizzly) look angry. I mean they have all the cute-assets; little round fluffy ears, little "cute" eyes. i guess it's the HUGE teeth and mouth. The large, nostrils do their bit too.

I am currently returning to the "building blocks" of illustration: sketching and colour theory. I have also been working on my painting skills and feel like I have learnt a lot that I can use in my illustration. Most interesting of all has been the warm/cold colour juxtapositioning of the old masters (won't write about it all here - get in touch if you want to know more).

I have also finally mastered the creating and using my own brushes in Photoshop. Yay! Exciting stuff (for me anyhow). Keep an eye out for results of this in the future. All in all I am very busy with various projects. My layout and InDesign skills have been pushing forwards in leaps and bound because of work on 6-page a CD booklet.

Have a good one, hope you get some sunshine! (Here in Sweden the sun is hardly going down at all)