Gone fishing

So here is the boy who's going to be catching crabs in the rock pool. I wanted him to be as cute as possible so that it felt even more sinister that he was being stalked by a ginormous crab.

Crusty Crustaceans!

I loved the idea of the little boy crab fishing whilst he's being watched by a huge crab so I decided to turn it into a full illustration.

I've done a simple colour block to get the feel for the composition and tone of the image, which I wanted to feel nostalgic and whimsical but at the same time a bit mysterious. In order to not make the image feel too dark I decided to choose a more vibrant colour for the crab. I chose a pinky sky because I feel this best conveys the feeling of nostalgia, like looking at sepia coloured photos.

Coves, caves and crabs

Last week I went camping in Cornwall near the Lizard peninsula. On one of the walks we went on I came across this awesome little jetty in a cove. It had a rusty old cog wheel at the top of the slope and then a tiny beach of rocks across the water. I thought it would be a great starting point for and illustration so I took lots of pictures and did some sketches...

The crank (complete with someone's doggy bag...at least they picked it up...)

The slope down to the water

The cove with cave

This is a quick water colour sketch I did of the cove, complete with a little doodle I did based on an idea I had for an illustration about a boy crab fishing being snuck up on by a giant crab...

I gave the sketch some colour to use as a guide.

Now to make an image!