Digital Collagin’

I came across some high res fur textures today and so I thought it would be a good excuse to try this out!

I wasn’t really feeling this little guy when I first made him, but he’s grown on me a bit. I’m just not used to producing things so.. stylized, I guess? I do like how he’s got different colors of fur on him, darker for the details and lighter for the face and body so that it looks slightly more three dimensional, not just incredibly flat. I think I succeeded in that, at least I hope I did!

Oh poor little leopard dude – you were pretty unsuccessful, weren’t you. The pattern is too dark for your eyes to show up, it’s too condensed in your ears.. ugh. One thing I DO like about this guy, though, is the actual basic design of him, proportions-wise. I was trying to create a childlike shape so kids could could relate to – disproportionately large head, nubbly limbs, slight belly, low-set eyes, buttony nose, all that stuff. I’ll come back to that aspect, at least, if not the collage technique or fur pattern.

I’m trying really hard to find my “style,” here – one of the reasons I wanted to do a child-oriented project in the first place was so that I could work outside of my natural element and explore my illustration style from a completely new perspective. Similarly to the last project, I wanted to try collage again here because it’s not something I’ve had a lot of experience with, and I’m still trying to get a feel for it. I think maybe combining two things at once that I’m not familiar with is perhaps not such a good idea? I don’t know – I’ll come back to it.