Space Cats: Battle on the Moon

I've been having tons of fun with my new Wacom tablet this week. I've actually had a couple barriers to overcome starting out with it that I feel like I am beginning to work past -- first being finding a technique/workflow that I enjoy. 

Before, I had always made my illustrations in Adobe Illustrator by using the mouse to make vector shapes with the pen tool. That is a great way of working, but after I got into sculpting I've been wanting to find a more organic, hands-on, way to illustrate that feels more like drawing on paper or traditional medias. Enter: the Wacom Cintiq and Photoshop and now the possibilities of ways to go about creating are endless!

I'll admit - at first the possibilities seemed a little too endless, and I would see so many great digital artists who use Wacom tablets, but the way they use it just doesn't work with my style and workflow preferences. Thankfully, one sleepless night while hopelessly searching for technique inspiration online, I found this great tutorial on the Wacom Blog. I love this guy's way of working and it has totally inspired me. Using this technique I can sketch my ideas out, then move on to outlining/inking -- and once that step is perfect I am ready to add color!

So I got around my first barrier, but the other thing holding me back recently is subject matter. I had been pretty uninspired lately on design ideas -- partly because I think I was trying too hard to come up with something-- but also because I feel like I was focusing more on what I could use the design for in my shop instead of coming up with the most awesome design possible and figuring the rest out later. 

I'm still working on all of this, but making this Space Cats design yesterday has been a great learning experience for me. It helped me get my mind into more of a fun/goofy/storytelling design mode - which I love.

Thanks so much for reading :) I hope the Space Cats Battle makes you smile!