Hello guys, today I made another art post. My subject is still 'animals' but this time, these animals will be anthropomorphic.

Hey there guys, this morning, my friend @futurethinker asked me for something. He asked me to do a thumbnail for his account that he will constantly use for his upcoming posts.

I saw that request as a good opportunity to teach something useful to this beautiful people of Steemit

I'll be giving some tips on how to approach art requests like this so the actual initiation of the job/request will be effective. This post is really good since, it is not only applicable for personal requests like this but also for job orders that is provided with statements from a customer or a client.

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How did our talk go

So as I said, this morning @futurethinker told me that he wanted to have this thumbnail for his account. He is kind of disappointed since he asked for someone in this platform called Fiverr to do the job but the thing is, he wasn't happy with the output.

I told him, "okay, I'll do it but I cannot do those vectored drawings like @atopy, @skyleap and @steemitadventure do cause I don't have a vector software and a drawing tablet, all I can do are monochromatic images in grayscale and duotone in Photoshop".

I showed him some sample and he said that he likes the drawings but he wants it to be vectored. With that, I suggested him to just find someone that will do the vector part for the piece.

So let us stop here for a while so I can point out and explain some things here.

First thing is, in digital illustrating, there are two types of illustrating softwares, they are: vector softwares, good example of vector softwares are Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. The second is pixel software(I am not sure what you call them but I call them pixel softwares cause the outputs with the brushes and the marquee strokes go pixelated when the graphics card of the PC you are using is low). Good example of pixel softwares are Adobe Photoshop and Giff.

There is another type of software for illustrating called CAD but that is for technical drawings so I better not put it in the list.

So which software is better? Pixel software or vector?

Maybe because I said that I can't achieve quality works like @steemitadventure does you already assumed that vector softwares are superior compared to pixel softwares.

If you did think that way, I'm sorry but you should know that you are wrong.

Both softwares have strength and weaknesses.Pixel softwares can't produce such crispy lines and colors unless you have a good graphics card. On the other hand, vector softwares can do crispy outputs like @atopy does even you only have that built in graphics card or maybe, no graphics card at all.

The thing that vector softwares cannot do is edit those pictures in details. For example is erasing pimples from a human face clean or changing the colors of the leaves on a tree.

The second thing that I want to point out here is the importance of having samples and a portfolio. Showing the client pieces of work that you already had done can make your communication with the costumer be easier.

Sometimes, no I mean most of the time, these clients doesn't really know what they want, they just get up into this idea that I want a banner, a cartoon character or a logo without much details on what they really are looking into. At times like that, showing samples and giving suggestions would be the best move so the job will be done in the expectations of the costumer. By the way, I'm not being paid for this, so please upvote, hehehe.

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Doing the Thumbnail

We got more discussions on what he really wanted to see in the illustration that he was requesting, he gave me more vague details that I nailed with my suggestion of using 'animal mascots'. Yes, with that 'animals mascot' concept we got into the picture, I suggested some animals like cats, dogs and platypuses and showed him my post the other day which he said he liked but he didn't upvoted. XD

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Process

First, I drew some rough sketches in a piece of scratch paper. He specifically told me that he wants that gangster theme so I went into drawing with that in mind.

Here they are, I added more concepts that was floating in my head that time.
@futurethinker liked the bird concept of the drawing I did the other day so he requested me to do a bird for the mascot as well, which I did.

Since we will be having two characters it is important that the two characters can be differentiated easily, visually. With that said, I decided to make the platypus small and the bird big to show some contrast with the sizes of their bodies.

After that, I made a rough drafts that will be the base for my finished concepts.
I stuck a piece of tracing paper over the rough draft so I can replicate the same pose for my other concepts.
I am trying to make the tracing paper more visible here by pushing it with my finger but my camera can't really capture it, sorry.
There, my first concept.
I flipped the tracing paper just to show you what really happened there.
So, after that first concept, I removed it and stuck another tracing paper for my second concept and here it is.
Same thing with big bird.

There, I stacked the concepts with their respective characters for you guys to see that I really used tracing papers here, I'll be sending these concepts to @futurethinker to see and decide if he will use them.

But since we already made this post this long, why not add another portion for this post with that classic step by step process of drawing and coloring an illustration

You already saw the finished drawing above as a thumbnail and so, this is how I did it.

First I drew the characters in a badass pose as shown below.
I started inking it from my left to right to avoid smudging the ink with my hand.
I tried to make big bird look more ferocious by adding more heavy lines around his face.
Did you know that the tear drop tattoos have different meaning in gangster culture?
A black tear drop tatto means that you had lost someone dear to you.
I am not sure about the other colors but the most common ones are the tear drops with solid color blue that means that you already had murdered someone.
The other one that I know is the tear drop that means that you were raped, that tear drop shows humiliation of what has been done to you by a gang. Yeah, gang rape.
And the other one is the tear drop with no color.

That tear drop means that someone in your gang has been murdered by a member of another gang. That tear drop is to be filled once you successfully avenged your associate.

With all that tear drop trivias, the inking for this drawing has now been done.
Now I colored it.
There, done!

How is my drawing folks? Liked it?
I'm proud of this one
Please give me an upvote, a resteem, a follow or at least just a comment
Thank you and see you tomorrow