Based, of course, on the famous ape-to-man image, this is a logo/promotional image for Weight Evolution.com.

As I mentioned before, I like drawing large people, so this was quite enjoyable, even if the lady’s lovely curves melt down as she walks. ^__^

This header is a lot more formal-looking than the cartoons I usually do, so it had different kinds of challenges, like getting the colours exactly right and finding a good font. I’m quite happy with the result.

Lexi Rodrigo keeps a number of blogs, including The Savvy Freelancer with useful freelancing tips. She asked me for a new blog header, and we went through a couple of concepts for it. This sketch is one we didn’t go with, but I think it has a certain something so I wanted to share.

Check out her site to see the final banner in action.

This is a card I drew for my cousin who had her first baby. He was kind of a giant baby apparently, but they’re both still doing well.

The colours were much nicer than this, but my scanner wasn’t really up to scanning this (poor thing is getting old). Oh well. At least you can see how cute it is.

One in a series of older people I cartoonised. I like the way these two came out. Although the characters were based on a photo, I changed the poses and expressions. I like doing that, it feels more like being an artist rather than a very slow copier machine.

I should have finished the man’s arm though, it looks a bit spooky!

LaVonne Ellis runs Customerlove, a kind of communal challenge for small businesses and freelancers to make our clients and customers feel loved. It’s rather awesome, and some time ago she asked me to draw her some mascots for the site, based on the idea of her as a kind of super-waitress.

I did three mascots, the one above and these two:

Also, just so you know, LaVonne was a dream to work with. If you read Clients from Hell like me, it’s important sometimes to remember that the good people do exist!

I thought it’d be fun to post my practice sketches more often, and it’s less hassle now that I do them digitally some of the time. So here is the start to what will hopefully be a series: sketch of the week!

Feet is a subject a lot of beginning artists find difficult, and not-so-beginning ones, too! These sketches are from photographs. To do these, I got a google search up and set a timer for (I think) 1 minute per photo. Setting yourself a speed limit really teaches you to be decisive and get stuff right first time, I highly recommend it.

It’s also cool to see just how interesting feet are when you study them in their own right rather than as the awkward appendages at the end of the legs. Feet are great!

A friend was preparing a giant squid themed suite of birthday presents for his boyfriend (some people, eh?). He asked me to draw a cute giant squid to feature on a T-shirt and gift tags etc.

Giant squid are really interesting, but it’s hard to find good pictures of them because they’re generally very deep underwater or, you know, all dead and stuff. I worked with several different reference sources for this rendition, which has the anatomically correct number of arms and tentacles, and the size of the eye is only slightly exaggerated. I enjoyed making it extra shiny to express the wetness, even though wet things aren’t shiny when they’re under water!

These are some personal mascots for Aubrey, who wanted mascots to represent setting out on new adventures, being more playful, and balancing love for others with self-compassion. If you like the idea of having personal mascots, check out personalmascots.com for pricing and other details.

Not long ago, I offered a special pay-what-you-can sale for portraits of people’s loved ones, pets, etc. It was really fun, and thanks to everyone who took me up on the offer.

These are photographs rather than scans, because my scanner doesn’t pick up these kinds of colours very well.

Wow, it’s been an age since I posted anything, due to technical difficulties. Guess I better make up for that now.

Here are some of my morning practice sketches, for once done digitally rather than my preferred cheap paper and colouring pencil. I like drawing large people, there’s lots of interesting stuff to draw and I find their soft shapes attractive. It can be very hard to find good reference pictures though (all these are drawn from photographs).