Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

This digital painting illustrates a Pirate galleon ship, manned by a crew of cartoon animals, out on the ocean.

The Captain is a proud Lion with an eye patch, peg leg and fetching outfit, brandishing a sword. Other members of the crew consist of a Rhinoceros eating an apple, an elephant with a hook, a Zebra mopping the decks, a giraffe and a collection of cheeky monkeys up to no good playing around the ships rigging. Finally, in the crows nest is a pig on look out duties. The Galleon has its cannons at the ready and all the sails in use for a quick get-away, the fluttering flag, with the skull and cross bones motif, indicating the crews intentions.

The picture was done to A3 size and painted in Photoshop, during summer 2013.

Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

skateboarding happy lion listening to ipod

Vector illustration of Skateboarding lion listening to ipod

This vector based illustration is of a cool and happy young lion enjoying his skateboard. He is listening to his white ipod. It is based on an earlier artwork of the same subject, but created in 3D (lightwave). This new one was created using illustrator, and has a far more graphic look, using blocks of colour controlled in shape by bezier curves. Using this technique makes it easier to produce different versions of the lion on a skateboard.

skateboarding happy lion

skateboarding happy lion

Cartoon Lion Father Christmas delivering presents

Cartoon Lion Father Christmas delivering presents

This digital illustration is painted in Photoshop to A4 size. It was painted in October 2012 and is for the Christmas season. The illustration depicts a Lion, dressed as Santa delivering presents. He is pictured creeping silently out of a boy cub's bedroom, leaving behind presents. The Lion cub is fast asleep and is busy dreaming about Christmas. A Christmas stocking is on the end of the bed, and the room is decorated with Christmas lights. The perspective in the image is deliberately distorted and does not matter for this cartoonish image. The main light source is from the open door in the bedroom. The lighting is not designed to be realistic but cheated so that the viewer can see the Lion cub and presents clearly.

cartoon lion father christmas

 

Animal Supermarket

Animal Supermarket

This was painted in photoshop and completed in oct 2010. It is a follow on I suppose from the animal underground commute illustration done a few years ago. Some of the animals are the same,in particular the crab and snake, but there are a few additions that were noty in the previous one. Doing all the packs on the shelves does take time, even using cloning,etc tools in digital painting.

from website...
This image is painted in photoshop at a size of 29cm x 21cm. It is a follow on from the animal underground commute painting done the year before, by picturing animals doing a very human mundane activity, and features a collection of animals enjoying their weekly supermarket shop. The animal customers featured are elephants (and daughter), Lion, Cow, Bull, crab (carrying stuff on his shell as on the tube journey picture), Lioness and son, Pig, Snake, Bear, Crocodile, Zebra, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Tiger, Giraffe, and Monkey. Horses are again featured serving the customers at the checkout as in the supermarket horse illustration, else where on this site.
Producing all the packs can be a bit tedious, even using photoshop, but it is important for the setting. Also for the setting it is important to have boards with prices around, so time was spent creating graphics that look like numbers but are not recognizable as numerals.

Animal Train

Animal Train

A train journey for an assortment of animals.A pig is driving, with passengers made up of a lion,giraffe,elephant and monkey hanging on at the rear. It is set, apart from the animals, in a very english setting with english railway equipment. My original intention was to repaint an earlier image featuring cute pigs traveling in a train. The earlier image was painted quite small (link) so the intention was to redo it on a larger scale. But things sometimes never quite work out, and I ended up doing a different take on the subject matter. Painted in late 2008 in photshop.

from the website...

Cartoon animals on a railway journey was digitally painted during 2008 in photoshop, to a A4 size. It features a pig driving, lion reading, bear listening to gramophone, snake on chimney, elephant and giraffe. A monkey is hanging on to the end of the train. Finally a blackbird guard is timekeeping and has just been dislodged from the falling signal arm. The image is in some ways quite realistically painted in terms of the foliage, reflections and general tone and colour qualities. But the perspective is quite (stylistically) distorted, in particular the track, to show and clarify the overall scene. But the occupants and in particular the engine are drawn as solid objects in a 3 dimensional world. This illustration is a development from this earlier illustration. The intention was to redo this earlier image to a larger size, but once you start drawing different ideas come out!
Painted in 2008. 

lion daily life

lion daily life

Lion family in park
lion hospital

The park outing was painted in photoshop in march 2009. The lion hospital was done later in march 2010.

from the website...
This is a happy lion family out enjoying a day out in the park. The child, wearing a football kit is propelled along in a pushchair. The mother has just been to a fashion clothing shop, judging by the bag she is carrying. The illustration is portrayed from a very low angle, as can be seen from the grass and flowers on the bottom right hand side of the image, to give added depth and interest. Painted in 2009  


This illustration depicts the events of an animal hospital. A lion cub is in a hospital bed, while a lion doctor examines the patients notes. A lioness nurse looks on. The digital painting is set at a low and wide angle to add interest and to make the plight of the cub important. Painted in 2009.

Come back to update/ 3d lightwave images

Come back to update/ 3d lightwave images

Images created in 3D
After a long break I'd thought I should upload some more images and notes up here. This image of the aeroplane was done during august 2009, and is different in that it is created in lightwave. It is resonable successful, but it took about 2 weeks to do and I think its too long to be practical. I did two other 3D images, one of which is the lion on the skateboard. I received a nice email from and authour in USA saying how much they enjoyed it straight away!
It is quicker to draw them in the usual way than create 3D models and I think they look better drawn and painted, in photoshop. The only upside is that the characters can be reposed or even animated as all this has to be built in to the model/scene set up.

from website...
 Created using Lightwave 3D,then finished in photoshop.As an experiment, I created two images in this process, one after another, and both are visible on this site. The point of the experiment was to see if it is practical to do this type of work in 3D modeling. I have done lightwave work in the past (animation) but not for this type of subject. Usually I would draw this type of thing, in photoshop and then paint fully in photoshop as can be seen from most of my work on this site. Sadly doing the '3D' route for this type of imagery is too long, taking about 7 or so days, whereas directly painting it would be 2 days, and probably a better,more rounded illustration would be produced! 
 

Animals On A Tube Train Subway Commute To Work

ANIMAL TRAIN COMMUTE

Painted in photoshop at A4 size, this is an entertaining collection of animals going to work. The interior of the train is based on a central line underground train. I wanted the passengers to do normal things that commuters do, ipod etc, and liked the horse with hooves operating a laptop. If the scene was slightly wider I would have had water on the floor around the base of the seals tail. Painted dec 2008.

from the website...
Traveling on the London Underground was something I did for over ten years. It was a only a matter of time before I decided to put animals in to replace humans in this normally mundane routine for many. Over half of the underground system is overground but an African savanna view like this outside would be very rare. The illustrated cartoon animals seen on their daily commute here are lions, an elephant, seal reading newspaper, cows, crab, horse typing on laptop, fox with ipod,rhinoceros reading paper, monkey hanging from hand rail, giraffe and a crab carrying its briefcase on its shell. It is painted in photoshop to A4 size and took about a 5 days to do. The original drawing is done on the computer using a drawing tablet, and then painted electronically using traditional painting techniques. The inside of the carriage is based on a central line train. 

Richard of lionheart

RICHARD LIONHEART LION

This was done in A4 size in dec 2008. I wanted to show a confrontation, in a humorous way, between two strong forces, but one good and one evil. The idea, and the composition came very quickly, and I wanted the sky to be dramatic and have strong, violent colours.

from the website...
Richard of Lionheart, seen as a proud and strong Lion is about to enter battle with a nasty crocodile as his enemy. The composition allows both characters to be show, but with the stronger Lion king in a prominent and dominant location. The sunset indicates warfare and the tree possible death to the looser.

Painted in 2009.