Category: In the Style Of

Wallace and Gromit is a landmark franchise in British animation created by the one and only Nick Park. I decided to illustrate Nick Park in the style of his most famous creation.

I won’t lie, this one took a bit longer than the usual flat cartoon styles I’ve been drawing and was quite challenging. I’ve not really explored Adobe Illustrator’s full gradient capabilities until this project, but I’m glad I did. I wrote an article about stepping outside your comfort zone and this was one of those instances.

I didn’t want to just do a flat stylised version of the character. I wanted to see if I could replicate the 3D nature of the clay characters in Illustrator. Although it’s obviously not clay, I think I was mostly successful in creating a 3D look to the character. I can now apply my new gradient skills and refine them in future projects.

I’m a big fan of the Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack and was really pleased when they brought it back to conclude the series a couple of years ago on Adult Swim.

This is my take on the show’s creator Genndy Tartakovsky in the style of Samurai Jack!

My kids are big fans of Captain Underpants, the books and the cartoon. I decided to draw Captain Underpants’ creator Dav Pilkey. I think it turned out well and he even gave his stamp of approval with a cheeky comment on the sketched version on Instagram.

This is my take on writer and producer of Rick and Morty, Ryan Ridley, in the style of Rick and Morty! The background is an actual show background so I take no credit for that! Sketched in Sketchable and vectored in Adobe Illustrator.

This one is perhaps controversial, but I thought it was pretty funny. There’s recently been a resurgence in Momo, an art project turned online terrorist that is apparently telling kids to do bad things without telling their parents. However, it’s unclear whether the reports that some kids have actually harmed themselves are a hoax. Momo has apparently been appearing in Youtube videos that appear to be things like Peppa Pig, but part way through will show up to terrify them.

The sculpture itself is half scary, half funny and the whole thing has probably been blown out of proportions by paranoid parents and schools. Ironically more children have looked up Momo since all the warnings came out, which is just adding fuel to the fire.

This illustration is my way of making light of mountain that should have been a molehill.

I think I need to watch something a bit more contemporary. I’ve been doing a lot of 90s themed drawings! Here’s another one, Bj?rk in the Style of Beavis and Butthead.

The Beavis and Butthead style is quite loose, so it’s not too difficult to get a character to fit in that world. There are some consistencies, but mainly in the linework and some of the facial features. This was fun to draw!

Being honest, this is one that I’m not going to enjoy looking at often. There’s just so much wrong with it that I can’t not see. The proportions, pose, quality of the digital painting and the life of the character in general are all lacking. But knowing this is the only way to improve.

This is the third digital painting that I’ve produced in this series and I think the order that I approached each section had a huge effect on the final product. I started with the rough, which was very rough. Following that I went straight to blocking in some base colours, thinking I’d refine the linework on top of the colour. The linework should have been refined first as I ran in to a lot of difficulties requiring lots of editing and time. You live and learn, I’m still new to digital painting.

A solid approach to character design starts with gesture and pose, so I don’t know why I sometimes ignore it. This is what adds the most life and ultimately engagement to a character, regardless of finish. It could be due to the time restriction so I try and skip ahead, but the end result is lifeless.

This is one that I may retry, but I’m going to lay it to rest for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes.