These guys were done in pencil then ink on paper. The original drawings I did a bunch of years ago (look at all that stippling!) But I just colored these today. The coloring was done in Photoshop.
Some Photoshop collages done on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s a bit too warm in the study; I’m listening to Suze Orman podcasts and poring over the endlessly fascinating Library of Congress photostream over at flickr.
These monsters hired me to do their portraits as New Year’s gifts to each other, which I thought was sweet. It seemed like the monsters might eat me for dinner, so I had to make their portraits a little more flattering than realistic. This went over really well and the monsters even jokingly mentioned that I might need new glasses. They winked at each other, which sent ooze flying.
These were done with pencil on paper. Color & texture done in Photoshop.
I finished my LetterHeads poster and it is for sale at Zazzle! All profits (10%, so maybe a buck or two per poster) go to 826 Valencia, a nonprofit organization that promotes kids’ literacy, writing, and creativity. I’m making zero profit, except for the immeasurable emotional reward of knowing my poster is causing you endless joy and happiness. There are two versions of the poster, thusly:

I wanted one poster that was lower-contrast, and one that had a more contrasty oomph. I don’t know what’s going on with your decor at home, so I thought I’d better give you a couple options. Both poster options are 14″w x 24″h. The poster comes on a range of paper options. I recommend the archival heavyweight paper, which looks awesome. But even the cheaper options come out great.
My sweetie Gabe Danon wrote the excellent copy: “Welcome to the Land of the LetterHeads, a town full of shifty characters and boldfaced liars living in the margins of society. It’s a lawless town: there is not one sheriff and there is not one serif. They’re oversized, capitalized, and politicized — some are left-aligned, others right-aligned, and some fall right down the center. But in their own way, each and every one of them knows he’s justified.”
Go on over to zazzle and buy a poster! Oh, and before you do any purchasing, check out retailmenot to see if there are any promos you can use! Sometimes you can get 50% off of posters.
Please feel free to email me at andrea@plinkyplinky.com if you have any questions about the poster!
Gabe & I have been listening to the amazing Mike & Tom Eat Snacks every week. It’s a great podcast to doodle along to. I did some monster doodles while we were listening a couple weeks ago. Here are some things I made from those doodles:
As always, I tried to keep the colors neutral, the graphics soft and restrained, and the overall tone as refined as possible.
Drawings done with ink on paper. Color and texture added in Photoshop. Some additional graphics and patterns made in Illustrator.
I’m on vacation with my honey this week! Some highlights have been:
Despite the nonstop fun and excitement, I got some LetterHeads work done! The inking is finished and now I have to experiment with some coloring options.
I’ve decided to set up the poster at 14″ x 24″. Everything is vector, though, so I could scale it larger. Once I’m done, I think I’ll throw it up on Zazzle, since they seem to do non-standard poster sizes. I’m not sure what the quality of their printing is like, so I’ll have to get a test print from them done once I’m finished.
This version of the LetterHeads poster here isn’t fully colored. I just dumped a hue/sat layer on top of the greyscale outlines. But, it turns out that I rather like the simplicity of this style of coloring. I do still want to do a little more experimentation with coloring, and adding a little texture to it as well. Stay tuned, dudes!
The inking has begun! Also, I asked Gab to think of another name for these things. He came up with the genius LetterHeads. Thanks, Gab.
I traced these in Illustrator, and my plan is to color them in Photoshop once I have them all inked. You simply cannot put the cart before the horse. The cart is coloring and the horse is a horse.
Oh, and here’s a video of the first inking. As you can see, I started out experimenting with inking styles, but I think I landed upon one that will work out well: