In an effort to remember yesterday’s formula for animated gif success, I’ve animated another doodle creature. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: creature
Doodle Creature
As part of a drawing exercise, I created some doodle creatures. I thought it would be fun to animate my illustrations – and with help from some friends to get better quality animations from my past attempts, I’ve gotten this critter snorting, hooray!
The Greater Spiked Snow Slug
It’s a rare thing in the UK that we get a whole bunch of snow. I awoke last Friday to freezing cold and blinding white – indicating the arrival of that scarce and precious day ‘Snow Day’. Some rejoiced as they were given a day off their usual commitments, as others found it a hideous nuisance – seemingly everything packs up for a day.
I tried to be sensible; I tried to ignore The Call Of The Snow but its wintery sculptural qualities wistfully reminded me of my favourite holiday of the year – Halloween. Trussed up and ready for snow-fun, I burst into the garden to gauge my canvas. I was going to make the best snow jack-o-lantern ever!
Quite soon I came across my first difficulty – my hands were very numb very quickly and without an appropriate amount of dexterity, my sculpture would never realise its full potential. Cue moment of **absolute blinding genius**. For those snow sculptors amongst you, please feel free to use and share this idea for prolonged snow-playing. First, apply the glove (must be fairly thin). Then apply a larger washing up glove. Hey presto – warm dry hands! The gloves tend to have raised bits on the palm side for better grip – I found this was great for getting a good smooth finish to my snow. Bonus!
Setting back to work, my hollow pumpkin shape kept collapsing into itself. I decided it was a bit optimistic to expect a hollow ball to be successful. Turning to my favourite snow guru for inspiration, I wondered – ‘What would Calvin do?’. If you’re not already a fan of the comic ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ by Bill Watterson, I suggest you check it out! Calvin is a 6-year-old boy, who in some skits, shows an interesting take on snow creations. Feeling inspired I created a large round ball and sculpted a squinting face with a gaping mouth. I later stuck in a tongue for extra effect.
It didn’t seem enough so I stuck a tail on the end. It was a fairly short tail but I did worry that it was starting to look a little too sperm-like. Other opinions told me that it looked more like a ‘Boo’ from Super Mario so I figured I could get away with it if I wanted. In the end, I decided it would look better with spikes down its back.
Snow creations are better with accessories so I washed off some stones and dug them into the mouth for teeth. I broke off some dead twigs from a nearby tree and gave my critter some arms. To give my artwork a setting, I cleared out the snow behind him so it looked like he’d slithered his way along. This did mean that I had to put down more snow in front of him, having used all the neighbouring snow on his body mass. If you’d like to make your own Snow Slug, I have included illustrated instructions!
After lots of hard work, I am proud to present my Greater Spiked Snow Slug: