Inspired by a beautiful illustration by the amazing Sam Weber and the wild baboons we saw on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon at Cape Point (here in Cape Town, South Africa) - I finally worked on a piece that I have been meaning to do for ages.

Digital / Wacom Intuos 3 / Photoshop CS3

And here are a few process images…

I finally feel like I’m making headway with building a body of work that I am pleased with (most of which seems to be digital these days) but it’s still all over the place in terms of style and subject matter and I worry that I won’t end up with a coherent portfolio that an art director could look at and confidently hire me knowing what they are going to get back.

In order to make a living out of illustration I need to find a niche (and style) that not only do I enjoy working in but is also profitable and the one subject that I always seem to come back to is animals/nature - but I also love Science Fiction art too (creatures etc) so I need to find a way to include both - I basically just need to work work work right now and see what comes out (but with one eye on the style/niche thing too!

At least I have been pleased with the last few things I’ve done - and that’s a huge step forward for me!

Wow - through illness, then playing catch-up with client work and re-branding our company, I failed miserably with the drawing-a-day plan.

Finally getting on top of things again now though and back to posting with an illustration that I have been dying to do since we arrived here in South Africa and first saw the amazing statues in Nobel Square at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.

I was really taken with the amazing sculptures and the aged copper surface of each one (I think they are aged copper as they have that amazing tinge of green to them) - anyway, here is my illustration of the statue of inspiration leader Nelson Mandella…

Pencil / Gouache Paint / Digital

Detail

Pencil & Gouache Paint version prior to digital work

The likeness is a bit off, but my main objective of this piece was to try and capture the texture and colour of the statue.

I know it’s a stretch for this weeks topic of ‘canned’ but it was inspired by the awesome movie ‘The Dark Knight’ that we saw yesterday. I really enjoyed working on this, my first more finished completely digital illustration.

The Wacom drawing tablet is starting to feel a little more natural now too - just need to mix up my brush strokes a bit and practice, practice, practice.

Just a quick practice pic today using my Wacom Intuos 3 drawing tablet (still trying to get the hang of it) as I’ve been playing catch up with other work all day after a cheeky little trip to the cinema to see ‘The Dark Knight’ this morning (couldn’t resist - it just came out today and I’ve been waiting months to see this movie!)

I haven’t had time today to do a drawing with traditional media as I have been working on some bread and butter work for one of our other businesses - Fitness Pro Toolbox

This is about the 43rd animation that I have done so far for the project and each one takes about 2 hours to draw in Adobe Illustrator and then animate using Adobe Photoshop, so they’re pretty time consuming.

It’s Illustration Friday time tomorrow, so my 6th drawing will be based on this weeks chosen topic - it’s always exciting when the email comes in to tell all of us IF’ers what the topic is for the week.

A portrait today of an icon, both in front of and behind the camera. The likeness isn’t quite there but hopefully you can tell who it is…

Pencil sketch with Photoshop colouring - and here is the sketch too, for anyone interested…

Sketchbook page with a little digital colouring

A rejected concept sketch for a client logo today - they decided to go with a photo in the logo rather than an illustration in the end.

Here we go with my first drawing…

These were sketched from some photos that my father-in-law took while on safari in Kenya (click for a large view).

I can’t wait to see all of these animals in real life when we take a trip over to Kruger National Park later in the year - I’ll definitely be taking my sketch book on that trip!

I can never get ‘enough’ of seeing wild animals up close and personal.

We are currently in Cape Town, South Africa and walking through the Marina, basking in the sunshine were a family of fur seals that decided to enjoy a lazy afternoon right there on the boardwalk - didn’t have my sketch book with me at the time but luckily I did have the camera!

Also, some very exciting news (for me anyway) - thanks to Illustration Friday, an author recently contacted me to use some of my work in a new book on contemporary illustration. His researchers had found me through the work I’d posted on IF. The book is set for a world wide distribution (I think in 2009) and will feature some of my children’s book illustrations along with all my contact details! Woooo hoooo!

I also read recently (on the IF blog) about the 365 day drawing challenge and thought it sounded cool. So, starting tomorrow, I will be taking part and posting a drawing of some sort every single day. Some may be more finished than others, some may be preparatory work for a larger piece, but I will post something new every single day for the next 365 days!!!