Finalised Alligator Illustrations!

Posted by Lauren Chandler

I have finally finished my illustration for the picture book, I took the same image and applied different emotions that I could use in my finalised book. What I like most about this design is the use of the gradient and colours. I really makes the character stand out. I also feel like this illustration is very flexible and will allow me to create different emotions and hopefully will be able to recreate different characters, like a whole family of alligators. I have also decided to keep the grain effect for this as I felt it really does create a really nice texture to my overall design and will allow me to keep my supporting graphics.

Realist Drawings.

Posted by Lauren Chandler

In helping me finalise my Alligator I did some realist drawings just to break away from the completely animated and fictional and take on a different perspective to widen my knowledge of the proportions of an alligator and the toning.

Doing this I have been able to take away key features of an alligator that I will have to remember when it comes to creating my illustrator, and that is the teeth, curved tale and some sort of shading. After doing these realist drawings I then started drawing a more fictional version, giving my alligator a bit of character:

I have added elements of previous illustration examples to help me creating something that works well, I will put this into illustrator and will play around with different features and colour.

Initial Alligator Design.

Posted by Lauren Chandler

For my initial alligator design I took on the style from my first pastiche from illustrations I found on Pinterest. Firstly I drew out my alligator to make sure I get the right proportions before I make it digital. I then stuck with the colour scheme when putting the illustration all together.

I then decided I still like the grain effect and applied this to my design. I also decided that I didn’t want to add any drop shadows and just keep it as a flat image. I then darkened the colour of the alligators body and added eyes. I then went back to look at the other illustrations I created and really liked the effect of the two tone gradient colour scheme of the body so I added this effect to my alligator in the main body, feet and spine. I also added more teeth.

Digital Illustration Pastiches.

Posted by Lauren Chandler

From the research I did recently on alligator/crocodile illustrations from Pinterest, I decided to have a go at copying these styles in Illustrator to see if I liked any of the styles or techniques. I really like the style of the first image and I feel that the quality is much better with this one. I had to use photoshop effects to recreate the watercolour effects however this appeared to really blur the illustration as a whole and I want to keep my illustrations sharp. I think I am going to develop this style further in different positions and different appearance.

Alligator Illustration Research.

Posted by Lauren Chandler

I have decided to go back to research and see what other styles I can apply to my alligator design. I did some realist Alligator research drawing, however I feel that if I want to add character and a fun element to my designs I will have to stick to basic and cartoon illustrations. I searched on Pinterest to see if I could find some fun illustrations that showed lots of character to the drawings, these are my favourite:

What I like most about these illustrations was how they portrayed the alligators as being friendly, cute and harmless which I what I want to show in my illustrations too. I also like the use of watercolour effects to relax to the fact Alligators habitat is lakes and water. When I am home over easter I would like to get the watercolours out and experiment with paints, as I feel it would give a different effect than if I made it digitally, even though I prefer digital work overall. I plan to experiment most, if not all of these styles so I am going to create some pastiches and see which style I enjoy the most and looks the strongest.