a cow, a bear, and a teddy bear for illustration friday

The Illustration Friday prompt this week is: animal. I had a couple of ideas that I played around with, then I remembered this image that I sketched and inked in September for a project. I ended up not using it then, so it was just black and white. Dug it out and added color today for the IF prompt.

It's the story of the beginning of a friendship between the bear and the cow, and the other animals in the bear's new neighborhood. It was a lot of fun to sketch back in September, and I'm happy to be able to finish this piece and share it today!

The Masked Moo In The Metropolis: a blast from the past for Illustration Friday

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is metropolis. Whenever I hear/read the word metropolis, I think of superheroes, so I can't resist posting this old comic I did of a cow superhero saving the city. It's from 2003 (I can't believe this drawing is twelve years old)! 

I'm considering reviving The Masked Moo* and making more stories and/or comics for her. Of course The Masked Moo isn't the only superhero cow I've drawn (probably not surprising to anyone who knows me). Maybe I should write a story/comic about the cow superhero community. That could be fun! It's tempting ...

* Originally she was Batcow, but I think The Masked Moo is a better name. What do you think?

Speaking of fun art, I posted sketches last week from an image I started for the Illustration Friday prompt, noise, but wanted more time with. The idea was that what's music for one person could be noise for another. (Note: the song has two words in it, bunny and carrot, and a repeating chorus of La La La - I can see how that would be noise to some people!) Thinking of drawing another image with them singing AND dancing to the Bunny-Carrot song! Here's the final image:

I also did finished art for the girl and robot sketch I posted a few weeks ago for the Illustration Friday prompt, passion. I ended up liking the black line with a few spots of red, so I kept that instead of making it full color, though I think full color would be fun too. Maybe I'll do more with these characters in the future, or draw more robots. Robots are fun to draw. Yay robots! Here it is:

I'm back at the drawing board this week imaging characters and their stories, possibly for a postcard. There are several new ideas and a few old sketches that are intriguing me. Crossing my fingers for a creativity filled week! Hope you have a creative week too!

robots, teddy bears, Popsicle passion, and toy tools

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is passion.* My picture for this week is a new sketch that I'm working on for my portfolio. It's a girl and her robot friend who love their teddy bears (they have a passion for bears, and toys, and teddy bears).

Here's a closer, cropped view, where you might be able to see that the girl's teddy bear is also a robot (as evidenced by the antenna on its head):

The hearts were already on the teddy bears when I sketched this yesterday. I made the hearts red to stand out more, plus I've always loved the way the color red pops when you put it in a black and white drawing.

My first thought for this week was my old drawing of a ghost with a passion for Popsicles, so I'm posting the ghost too (updated to fit in with the theme):

* When I found out about the theme this week, it was Thursday night at midnight (so technically Friday, but only by a few minutes). I was about to post my IF drawing for the prompt last week, which was toy. (BTW, they used to change their topic Friday morning at 10am EST, not at midnight, so I was surprised that they had already changed it. Would have posted earlier if I had known they were posting new topics Thurs. night now.) I had three possible images for last week, including one that I spent almost the whole week working on, but in the end decided it's not yet ready to share. The second image was the robot-girl-teddy-bears sketch and technically fits into the theme this week, so I posted that for the passion prompt.

The third image I was thinking of showing last week is a word that's hidden on a tool belt in my picture book, EWE AND AYE. One of the main characters, Ewe, is wearing a tool belt in one of the scenes. Originally, there were four tools in her belt. When I went to final art, they felt too crowded, so I removed one of them. Afterwords, I realized that the remaining tools spell out the word, "TOY." It was a happy accident and works with the narrative of the art in the book, so I left it in. So far nobody has noticed. Here's what it looks like:

Website: www.sruble.com

Book: Ewe And Aye written by Candace Ryan, illustrated by Stephanie Ruble - in stores now!