Illustration I like to draw, and in my spare time, I enjoy messing around with vector illustration. I certainly don't claim to be a master artist, but this is more of a hobby for me than anything.
Moon vs. Monster
I was doodling around in Illustrator with the shape and pathfinder tools. I started with the moon, then the monster's body, teeth, limbs and eyes. Wanting to make the scene even zanier, I decided to make a loud "rising sun" style pattern brush to create the background.
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Cloud
This little cloud guy came about when I had some ideas for a game. There's nothing terribly special about him besides some simple cartoon aesthetics and perhaps the highest cute factor of anything I've drawn in Illustrator, but I do have plans for this little guy.
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Orca
I actually started this project on paper and then scanned it into my computer. I did the line work for the orca and then colorized it, and as an exercise, played around with Illustrator's blend tools to give the orca some shading. I was very pleased with the end result and regard this to be one of the best digital illustrations I've ever produced.
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Mario Dolphin
I liked playing Super Mario World on the SNES growing up, and these dolphins made an appearance in the game. I was checking them out online one evening and found an old image of one from the Super Mario cartoon show and thought "hey, it would be really fun to recreate one of those in Illustrator!" So I did! I only did the linework and coloring on this one, but intend to go back and shade it one day.
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Waddle Doo
Waddle Doo is another character from the video game Kirby's DreamLand, and like the dolphin above, I saw an image of him online and thought, "he would be fun to draw in Illustrator" because his simple geometry would make for great drawing practice. The reference image (found here) also had some shading elements that I would do my best to duplicate. The things I learned shading-wise would help out much later on my Orca drawing above.
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SCIENCE Atom
This was a little something I put together after being inspired by the "retro poster" project I had to do for class (see immediately below). You can see the two projects have a lot of simllarites in terms of layout and style. The biggest problem I had when creating this though weren't with the colorization or shading of the atom's parts, but it was adjusting the orbital rings to appear to go "behind" the nucleus of the atom!
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P-38 Lightning
I had to create this in my Vector Graphics class at Purdue University for a "retro style" poster project. Requirements included large text, a stylized subject, and an abstract background. Following the advice of my professor regarding things like the gradient background, text, and the propellers, this was the eventual end result. It's personally one of my favorite pieces, and it took me the most amount of time to create. The heavy shading on the plane was achieved through many layers of gradients, instead of using blends, which, looking back, would have been tremendously easier.
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Hermit Crab
I created this little hermit crab during an afternoon of downtime during finals week at Purdue. I had been experimenting with different tools and stroke weights and eventually churned out a friendly cartoon hermit crab. It was a style I really enjoyed working with, and one you can see influences of in many of my other pieces.
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TIE Interceptor Lines
This was for my very first project in my Vector Illustration course at Purdue. We had to choose a mechanical object and recreate it using only varying line-weights or gray tones for material shading. Being a huge Star Wars fan, I chose to use the TIE Interceptor because it had such an interesting design. Of course I quickly found out that it was going to take a while to draw because of the intricate details of the ship's hull. The crosshatching on the solar panels was at the suggestion of my professor, but after he returned it to me after grading it, we both decided I probably should have fully texturized the panels. I will probably go back and update them one of these days. Reference image can be viewed here.
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Octopus
The whole reason this was created was because I had made a pattern brush to make waves in Illustrator and wanted to do something with it. So, I put together the horizon line, naturally, followed by the sky, and then I drew the octopus using some of my favorite techniques. I made a raft and put a sail on it, then gave the octo a cool pair of shades. It was all a really fun little afternoon sketch session.
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Copyright © 2010 Beau Watson