Friday, May 18, 2018

Illustration & Character Design: The Job Treasure Hunt (MORE PIRATES!)

Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

    What is a pirate to do when the ship is sunk? Look for a new job! Here are a series of playful illustrations completed for a hypothetical project. They would work for an article about job hunting or a picture book or comic about pirates looking for work. Their purpose is to demonstrate my ability to create various illustrations about a theme & design "simplified & cartoony" characters. You may remember these guys from the little "sneak peaks" & process posts I put up a little while back. You can click the images below to see them bigger.


The initial sketch.
Digitally inking & coloring
over a scan of the pencil art.
The digital art with flat colors (before I added textures.) Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.


Searching for a career you can treasure? You may be looking in the wrong place.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.
Flat colors, no textures.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Detail from the finished illustration.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.


Think about what your past jobs. What parts were you passionate about? In which areas of that position were you skilled?
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Flat color version.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Are you waiting for the right employer to randomly find your resume
or are you searching them out?
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Flat colors, no textures.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Detail from the finished illustration.
 Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

It can be very rewarding to find a job that combines your skills & passions, it just may not be the job you expected. Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.

Flat colors, no textures.
Illustration by Philip A. Buck 2018, Drawn in pencil, inked & colored digitally in Photoshop.
   
   Here's more of my character design & composition process:

I started by sketching different pirates & their pets that may need to find a new job. All of these were drawn in pencil on paper. -Philip A. Buck 2018

I continued to sketch the pirates & their possible pets (yes, there was almost a monkey!) in multiple job hunting pirate related situations. Not all of them panned out. All of these were drawn in pencil on paper. -Philip A. Buck 2018

I tightened up the designs & came up with a few more situations. I also drew different elements of the illustrations that I could piece together later in Photoshop during the inking stage. All of these were drawn in pencil on paper.
 -Philip A. Buck 2018

    Thank you so very much for taking the time to check these illustrations & sketches out. You can keep up with what I'm doing on a more regular basis by clicking the social media icons on this page & following my accounts. There, you'll even find some short little videos I made while I was working on this project. You can also find this project & more in my online portfolio. Thanks again, & God bless!