Violet-green Swallow and American Goldfinch

A couple more bird designs for sale at our ChuckleTree Etsy Store.

This time it's the Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) and American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis). I decided to mix it up a bit and have the goldfinch perched on a Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare). I know the Bull Thistles are an invasive species, but I liked the bit of complimentary pink, and I have read that American Goldfinches eat their seeds.

Stylized Animal Challenges: Parrotfish and Wildebeest

For the last entry in my posting spree here are two animal drawings that I did for the monthly Stylized Animal group challenge on devaintArt. The parrotfish challenge has already come and gone, but the wildebeest is still open (until the first week of September).

For the parrotfish challenge I drew a humphead parrotfish. Between their massive overbite, malformed noggin, and the name 'humphead' I couldn't resist drawing it as a backwater hillbilly. Plus I was reading a lot of The Goon at the time.

For the wildebeest I just did a simple faux cut-out caricature. I rather enjoy how this one turned out. There is something almost tiki-esque about the face. 

Snowy Owl

Between work, overtime at work, and applying for more work (and trying, in vain, to work on my journal manuscript) I haven't had a lot of time for art. I have taken a few hours here and there to work on small projects though. 

Anna bought a Cameo Silhouette about a month ago, and to test it out I made this snowy owl cut-out. It was all cut out of a single piece of watercolor paper, and each piece was individually painted.

Lately I have been getting into birding and started keeping a life list. Counting my time in New Zealand and South America, and the lists I kept while in those countries, my count is already up to 245. Expect more birds in the future!

Army Aunty

I was inspired to draw this after reading an awesome scientific paper about exploding termites that it started with this quote by E.O. Wilson (the grand-master of myrmecology).

The quote stuck a funny mental image in my head, so I decided to draw it.

I was just watching a TED conference presentation by E.O. Wilson that I enjoyed quite a lot.  I definitely recommend it to any young people with an interest in the sciences.

Croak Blockers

Just playing around with colours and shading styles again.  I'm trying to give it the crayon look in the style of a lot of the Pixar concept art.  

ABC Velvet Worm

As a bit of a break from reading statistics text books I thought it would be fun to do a quick drawing of a velvet worm in the style of the ABC book that I made for my niece for Christmas.

Who knows, maybe I'll make an ABC of invertebrates next.

I've been a bit derailed from the presidential caricature series by other work that came up, but I plan on getting back into that this weekend.

Cookiecutter Shark

This is a bit of an oldie that I forgot to post earlier this year.  I think I originally drew this in April, and then promptly forgot about it.  

Cookiecutter Sharks have to be one of the strangest looking fish in the world.  Apparently what they do is swim up to large prey, scoop a large round bite out of their side, and quickly swim away.  They have even attacked humans in that manner.  Big ouch!

Evil!

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil.

Anna and I each came up with our own versions of the three wise monkeys, and this was my concept.  Hopefully she'll draw up her idea soon too!

Mullet

A mullet sporting a mullet.  Yay for double meanings!

Jewel Gecko

A jewelled gecko photograph I snapped yesterday.

This is a bit of a deviation from the things I regularly post on here, but, just look at how awesome it is!

Textured Moose

Just playing around a bit with textures and line weights.  Moose are surprisingly fun to draw.

Birds of New Zealand

New Zealand birds are confusing!  Both the Maori and Western names are commonly used, so you typically have to learn two common names for every species.  Not to mention knowing the scientific names if you have to write a paper about them.  Furthermore the Maori names all sound the same to me!  Don't get me wrong, it is pretty impressive that the New Zealand people still commonly use the Maori names (because we all know that the first people to exploit a species should traditionally have the honor of naming them), but I do wish that most of the bird names didn't start with the letter "K". 

Case in point - the birds featured in this illustration are the: Kakapo, Kakarikis, Kokako, Kaka, Kaki, Kiwi, Kea, Karearea, and Kereru.  Try saying that three times fast!

I've been joking for a while that I should make an ABC's of native New Zealand birds.  The book would consist of one blank page labeled A-J, then an overpopulated K page, and finally another blank page labeled L-Z.  "New Zealand birding made easy!" 

PS.  There are even more K birds that I didn't include in this illustration: Kotare (Kingfisher), Kotuku (White Heron), Korora (Little Blue Penguin), and Korimako (Bellbird).  Just to name a few!

A few computer sketches

Here are a few random sketches that I did on the computer since I got home from the states. From the top left to the bottom:  An unsuccessful caricature of Graham Norton, an angry white chimp, and Anna and I warped by Photobooth.

Illustration Friday: Intention

Click on the image for a bigger version.

My submission for this week's Illustration Friday is autobiographical.

Lately I've been trying to work on my masters research.  I'm looking at a little critter called the "velvet worm";  a really interesting relic from the Cambrian geological period (~450 million years old).  I'm planning on doing a habitat selection study on the little worm so I have about six statistics and wildlife textbooks on my desk right now, and I've been buried in scientific journals.  Aside from my good intentions, I still find myself getting distracted from my research.  Case in point.

PS.  Check out this video of the velvet worm hunting.  Very cool! - (Disclaimer: This video contains a high degree of creepy and crawly.

Update: I finally found one!  I've been really concerned lately that there won't be any peripatus in my study area, but I visited the location today and found two of them within about an hour and a half.  Not bad odds!
And here it is.  You can see that glisten on the right where it tried to spit at me.

Digital Sketches: Cassowary and Emperor Tamarin

I’ve been dong some more digital sketches of animals on the Wacom the last couple of nights.

 

I accidentally drew the tamarin lines on the background layer, so I wasn’t able to add color. I still like how the lines turned out though.

Digital Sketch: Elephant

Last night I needed a break from coloring the comic book, so I did some other drawing and coloring. (Don't question it.  It makes sense.)

This was about a 45 minute sketch that I did completely on the computer.  I'm still working on my Wacom sketching skills, but I think I am slowly getting there.

Kakapo Leprechaun

(click on the picture for a larger view)

I recently moved to New Zealand to study Wildlife Management which inspired me to do a drawing of one of the many critically endangered New Zealand birds.

After looking at a number of Kakapo pictures I started to realize just how much they remind me of little fluffy leprechauns.  They're evasive, green, and like to hold things in their mouths (thus the pipe).

Hoatzin Sketch

Sketched this up really quickly this evening.  It's a hoatzin (pronounced "watson").  I saw a whole tree full of these when I was in Ecuador in 2006.  It was like seeing a tree full of 80s punk rockers.

I started this out at exactly the wrong dimensions and resolution, so that's why it kind of looks like a black velvet painting.  Better luck next time.

Emma’s ABCs

For about the last two months I’ve been working on an ABC book for my niece for Christmas.  She’s only about 13 months old but she’s already well past the traditional ABC animals, so I wanted to create some more challenging critters for her.  For a while I considered naming it the, “My Uncle Is A Biologist ABC Book”.  I think this title is a little less narcissistic.

Click on any images to see them larger.