Sometimes an illustration can look so wonderful in your head that no matter how long you work on it, it will never really be as good. My guess is that with practice, your craft will approach that point of perfection. I am very far from that point. Nonetheless, “practice makes perfect” and so I decided to post this recent piece I’ve worked on, that I fondly call “Lugs for Men.”

There are so many things wrong with it, that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I didn’t do great on perspective here. In general, the use of space leaves something to be desired. I must have tried 3-4 different color schemes and settled on this one mostly because none of the other ones were any better. I wanted to highlight the lonely little guy outside, but not sure I’ve done the best job. I tried a few coloring styles and decided to go with non-gradient shading but that might be distracting from the line work. In the end, I almost wish I didn’t bother coloring it at all.

Anyways, enough navel-gazing. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If anyone is interested, here is the line work without the coloring (click to see larger version.) Feel free to color it yourself if you are so inclined! Just let me know if you do, I’d love to see it.

I’ve recently discovered Brush Pens through the power of the web and ordered myself a few nice ones. Lots of people seem to have trouble getting used to them, but for me it was love at first sight. I wish I knew about the magic of brush pens sooner!

If you are curious, the pens are: “Pentel Pocket Brush Pen”, “Pilot Double Sided Brush Pen – Hard Tip – Black & Gray” and some Prismacolor markers.

In any case, here’s a couple of quick sketches I made earlier. I think the first one is a Fish and a Seahorsquid (although better descriptions would be lovely) and the second one is Giraffitti.