Happy Families: Squirrels

[Christine Garner]

I decided to finish a project I had started ages ago called happy families. I decided to do this instead of starting the bigger Baba Yaga project because I'm pretty new to this to be perfectly honest, and it seemed less intimidating.
I've decided to go with a simpler and cleaner rendering style for the final illustrations on these than my usual thing as I want to get them done by the end of the month and I think it will look better for printing on small cards and making into patterns for fabric. I'm really not sure if I'm on the right track with these so I would like some honest feedback please on what you think.

[Lee Holland]

I think they look really nice . I like your knitted stitch style on the bottom right squirrel.

[Christine Garner]

Thanks Lee I didn't realize it until you said actually, it does look like a knitted effect... I might go with that a bit more intentionally for other elements of these illustrations and see what happens. Thanks for your feedback

[Christine Garner]

Hello again ! I think I've nearly finished this project for the main illustrations at least. I thought I should show the first sketches and give some more background development information here:
Here are some sketches I did for the finals. I used tracing paper to develop my initial sketches (I wish I had used this stuff earlier...Doh!) because I figured out that if I taped it over paper it would still scan in fine and I can also check the mirror image of a sketch to make sure it works ok first (like flipping it horizontally in computer to check proportions).

Here is where I am up to now:

I decided to go with a simpler and more colourful style for the latest ones because I hoped it would be more children friendly and also I used strong simple shapes which I thought heavy rendering would be redundant on.

I have a youtube video showing many of my sketches leading up to this little project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxzr2yTlIdU

Then I had worked on these Illustrations a little while back, but I did not feel they communicated "Happy Families" very well though...

I am fed up of squirrels now!
Please let me know what you think

[Christine Garner]

I finished this project yesterday. On to the next...
Here is the art:

For more details and bigger images I've also put this on my blog and Behance portfolio.

[natiwata]

@Christine-Garner Really lovely style and colors, kind of calming to look at. Nice work

[corlettedoug]

So cute they look like little country squirrels. I really like their designs.

[MOO]

@Christine-Garner I really love that squirrel with the detailed log and the warm deep colors All of the illustrations are so cute.

[Durrell Odom]

They look very nice.

[Lee Holland]

I think they look great. Nice project.

[Christine Garner]

Thank you