Chris Deutsch

New Sick Chilly Bitchin'

"New Sick Chilly Bitchin'" is the title I had to go with - a twist on "Music Television". I decided to go with an ill and unhappy penguin. So I look at a lot of pictures on the web and sketch loads of penguins.

Then I sketch the cartoon version in different poses... or rather the same pose over and over again.

In Illustrator I sketch 4 screaming penguin heads and decide to go with the one on the right.

I give it a scarf and some arms.

Then I put a hot water bottle on its head and give it a more realistic tongue.

I draw the thermometer from the front, stick it in its mouth and clean up the lines.

I apply the colors in Flash (still no Live Drawing in Illustrator 10), and correct the colors in Illustrator.

I create a mesh for the hot water bottle... took me ages and I left it out at the end anyway.

On a seperate layer I draw the shadow lines.

This is the first time I've used masks for the shadows instead of the pathfinder. That way I'm able to give the shadows a blur effect.

Then I add the lines, mostly using various calligraphy brushes.

I was going to make a single color background, but by accident I gave it a gradient. I liked it so much, I just stuck with it.

The End.

For this piece I used Scriptographer, a plugin for Adobe Illustrator for which I wrote a script that gives me better control over the thickness of stylus-drawn lines.