I originally studied traditional illustration and have a quirky habit of drawing characters (and people I do not know) in a portrait/composition setting. . .almost as though they stopped by and posed for an hour. I am a huge fan of traditional portraiture and will begin sharing some of that soon.
While I am not a big monster person—I was having a monster day. I wanted to play around with subject matter where I didn't apply (imaginary) limitations on what was "right" or "wrong". With monsters there are no rules! On the left is my sketch; on the right is the vector art mostly in black and white. With simple images (like roosters) I can usually hop into color as I build the shapes. . .but with the patterns and line work that I had in mind, I started with the black and white. The lack of color allowed me to be sure all the line work was clean, consistent and balanced. Next is adding color. In my mind, I want to lean toward a vintage muted palette, but I have a feeling I will also play around with bright children's-market-friendly colors as well to see how they compare.
