New tags for DinoSquares!

This morning I wanted to have a bit of fun finding ideas for my new DinoSquare tags. So I spent an hour and a half of my time in Toys "R" Us just looking at toy labels. People were giving me the weirdest looks too! It was fun to look like I was stealing stuff but actually wasn't. >:3

The tag that stood out from everything else was this Hello Kitty tag, it was all pink but had a knock out white Hello Kitty face taking up the whole one side. It was stunning as a tag. It reminded me of some Japanese toy tags I've seen before. So I've decided to base my design off that one. I want my tag to be one solid color with a knockout toothy DinoSquare face and possibly "DinoSquare" written underneath.

Rough Sketch!

There's another part to the tag I need to worry about if I want to start selling these in professional toy stores, that would be the contents tag: What's in it, how it was made, where it was made. As far as I know that's all I'd need...I wouldn't necessarily need a logo tag, but that's would make it look pretty.

This is getting way off the topic, but Dan and I have been casually discussing the fact that I should think about registering my name into the Small Business Association at City Hall... just in case we do come to that decision, I'm leaving my business logo as Heather Russell. I've heard the rumor about registering your name being less of a pain than registering a made up business name.

I'm done.

-H

Alien Transformation!!

I promised it in my last blog, so here it is, a step by step on how I built the newer and more improved "Klyper" alien being.

First I want to admit I was too lazy to imagine a pose so I found a male model on the net and drew the basic skeletal structure of his pose.

I applied Klyper's facial features to this skeletal structure and the basic outline of where his new hair style will be placed.

I then darkened some of those features and added a blue underpainting to start forming his skin.

Starting to fill in features.

Adding a bit more emphasis to his facial features and cleaning up his hair so the outline looks more pleasing. Notice the cast shadows starting to form...

I want to make his skin a little darker, more like the way it looked in my last blog. I copy and paste another body...

...and paste it right on top of the older body. If you are the type of artist that gets nervous of darkening hues, this is a good way to get over those nerves...if you can think of a better way, lemmie know!

Here I add some more skin textures to match the style of the last painting.

He's supposed to be a vampire, so fangs help in that respect.

Final cleaning and texturing.

I fixed the original concept too! :,)

Holy Space Pirate!!

I thought this was a neat commission: an illustration/concept of a humanoid alien space pirate with blue skin, yellow eyes, thick jet black hair, pronged ears, the list goes on. I made a few sketches in the beginning to get the feel of what this guy looked like. When Dan mentioned, hey, that guy looks like Avatar I couldn't help but think of Avatar the whole time. I tried my best to steer clear of that.

Here's my first (hilarious) drawing of "Klyper" the space pirate:

I looked in my old art instruction books for ideas on what pose wanted this hotshot to be standing in, I thought this pose would suffice:

but then I started looking at super hero poses on the web and found this Deadpool dude, he has a much cooler pose:

So unfortunately I don't have a step by step on how I painted "Klyper" but this is how he turned out in the end:

So when my client saw it they were quite happy with it, there are however a few changes to be made to the hair, and I also need a 3/4 view of him smiling with his canines.

I'll post it bit by bit to give an idea on how I painted him next time.

-Heather