Merry Christmas!

And to one and all a happy new year!

Bears in Ill-fitting Hats

I love online group sketch idea things!

This one is for a group on flickr where you submit bears in ill-fitting hats - my effort is above, and a link to the group is here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bears-in-ill-fitting-hats/

This one was a very quick sketch (about 10 mins) in Painter, roughed out with the 2B pencil, 'inked' with the scratchboard tool (found under 'pens') and coloured with oil pastels. A bit of blending with 'just add water', a couple of gradients to fill out the background and I'm done!

Train Ride

An illustration for a History Books project - this particular page needed a train cab from the late 40s / early 50s.
There's some more detail in this one, as requested by the clients - but I've tried to strike a balance between suggesting everything and painstakingly depicting everything. I tried instead to give an overall feel of detail by including some in appropriate places, and hoping it all adds up to a satisfying image.

Pilate

The things you have to do, eh? I was working on a series of presentations involving 'hands' and needed to find a copyright-free image of Pilate washing his hands of responsibility - or something. Anyway, could I find one? Well, no. So I had to rustle up a quick illustration using Painter, and here it is!

I'm pretty pleased with it - I like the general tone and colours, though I think it needs some extra bits of detail here and there. I used oil pastels and the 2B pencil (and some graduated fills).

All in a day's work! (Well, about an hour or so).