The shadow is added on a separate layer in Photoshop. The shadow is the same color as the bug. The layer is set on “multiply” so that the color combines with the layer below it.

As can be seen by the date on this illustration, I drew this critter recently. Over the next week I’ll post the stages of a process I used to color it. The beast itself was lurking in my imagination for a day or so before I had a free moment to capture it on paper. That often happens. Some creature or character keeps jumping in front of my mind’s eye until I finally sketch them out.

The t-shirts that I designed for the Black Seal are now available through Cafe Press. My designs are the Mandala and the King in Yellow. I don’t actually know who designed the Seal on the black t-shirt.

As can be seen by the date on this illustration, I drew this critter recently. Over the next week I’ll post the stages of a process I used to color it. The beast itself was lurking in my imagination for a day or so before I had a free moment to capture it on paper. That often happens. Some creature or character keeps jumping in front of my mind’s eye until I finally sketch them out.

This is the final sketch from the 1997 sketchbook. This guy looks like a character from The Cauldron, a cops-versus-magic series that I’ve tried to get off the ground a couple of times. Neither time was in ’97 so either he’s not the guy I’m thinking of or I did this sketch quite awhile after I’d filled the rest of the sketchbook. That happens. I’ll think I’ve filled a sketchbook, start working in another one and later discover a couple of blank pages in the older book.

This is the last sketch of the client and her kids club gang. If anyone out there has seen a give away comic featuring the adventures of a friendly pharmacist and her preteen sidekicks then you’ve got a collector’s item! (But then, belly button lint is a collector’s item for the right person.) It’s also, despite the number of sketches here, not a project that Nizzibet or I had any input on after that first meeting. No regrets on that. I figure that if you aren’t syncing with a client early on in the process you’re not likely to start syncing better later.

This is the second to last of the sketches I did for the for the pharmacy kids club project. Then there’s only one more sketch left from this sketchbook and we’ll move on to something else.

It’s my brother Glenn‘s birthday today. I will spare you all the horror of me singing “Happy Birthday” to him.

Yes. It’s her.