December Pinup Sticker Club Reveal

Happy Saturday, my chill babes!

The winner of the sticker club theme poll was "Snow" and I thought it would be more fun to lean into the spirit of adventure than the expected cozy December vibes (not that there's anything wrong with that). Bit breezy down there, I suspect!

This one was an ordeal. The US election results really knocked me off my axis and being creative outside of work (and frankly sometimes inside of work) felt just...impossible sometimes. I bet many of you can relate.

I started with a sketch, not too dissimilar from the end result. I liked it as a starting point but I thought I could have so much more fun with it.

After this, I was looking at a really great book full of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Quest artwork, and wanted to try and simplify the concept further. I find a simpler design works so much better as a sticker, since it's so small and the more you can see and understand from afar, the better.

It's a nice step - a better sketch in my opinion - But once again...it was so static. I knew I had to take it further! One morning at work, I ended up doing extremely rough iterations again and again of the pose below until I felt like I really got what I wanted. You'll notice the blue line of motion running through the character. That's when I felt like I'd landed on a great basis for the final sketch.

And of course, here's the final sketch before I took it into Illustrator and worked my magic! In the spirit of simplicity, I went with minimal shading and highlights, and I think it's all the better for it. I cut out the pickaxe idea, not because I didn't like it but because I found it really frustrating to implement into the sketch and didn't have the time or patience to make it work. Sometimes pivoting is the solution!

This one's taken longer to get finished than expected, so thanks big time for your patience. I think it's super cute and I hope it was worth the wait!

Those who are members of the Pinup Sticker Club tier here on patreon on December 3rd, 11:59pm PST will get this (and a bonus sticker) mailed to them, so make sure you're on the list when the time comes! Don't worry, I'll remind you all closer to the date.

Thanks for reading!

Drew