I recently created this cartoon gorilla holding a video camera as a logo/mascot character for a client. I went through several rounds of sketches on this illustration, some sent to the client, some not. For some reason, I was really struggling with getting the ape to look like an ape. Initial sketches had him looking too “monster-ish”, which of course is not desired. It was odd because monkeys, gorillas and apes are probably some of the most fun types of characters to draw, and I just assumed it would come naturally.
But the biggest pain in the ass on this project was getting the camera down. After finding enough reference images to piece together a general video camera, drawing all the angles properly and getting the lens in line with all the angles was a major undertaking. I think sometimes my mental imagery of 3D objects works better at some times than others. And I am not one of those people who have vivid mental imagery whatsoever; in fact, my mind’s eye is quite hazy and vague. More visual impressions than actual imagery. But that’s a topic for a whole other blog post.
Eventually I got the angles correct, and got the gorilla looking like a gorilla. I still feel he could be more exaggerated, but the client was pleased with this direction so the vector art was created. Hand vectored in Adobe Illustrator.
A full logo was part of this mascot cartooning project, but at present I am still waiting to hear back from the client after repeated attempts to contact him after sending the most recent round of lettering concepts. Another good reason to get deposits. I just hope the client hasn’t decided to go ahead and take out my watermark and use the image.
by George Coghill -
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Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, art, cartoon, cartooning, character, drawing, gorilla, Illustration, illustrator, logo, mascot, sketch, vector
I love the design, How much were you asking for it?