The Slimy Toad

Hey guys,


Here we are on the third weekend of my degree's final year and I have something to show you :) My illustration tutor held up two envelopes, one filled with adjectives and the other with nouns. What you picked, you drew. I picked, much to my delight, 'Slimy Toad'. And so it begun.

When I heard 'Slimy', I instantly thought of guys like Jack Nicholson in 'The Departed', Jim Carry as 'The Mask', Les Patterson and Danny DeVito as Matilda's dad. The used car salesman type of slimy. the above was an initial concept piece where I tested acrylics with contact paper. THe rendering really helped get the slimy across with the sickly brownish green that I wanted. I based the hair on Tim Burton's spiny, tinny style of drawing.

Once that was approved, I begun with a sketch of the whole character I decided he should be a hedonistic, carnivorous bastard with long slimy shoes. Then began the nights that would end at about 1:30am after sweating over the rendering on his shoes, trousers, handkerchiefs...too many things.

I decided I preferred the original drawing of his head so I just concentrated on his outfit, predicting that I'd combine them digitally. All I needed to do was touch up his teeth. God bless Adobe.

It was a hell of a week, involving minimal sleep. But I ended up with this,

I showed this to my tutor and he wasn't as impressed as I hoped. He was of the opinion that the wood overpowered the toad and the shading needed beefing up overall. In hindsight, I agree. I've also found that the less time I put into something, the better it turns out. It just seems less dense and overworked. I spent too much time on this. For my own piece of mind, I made some minor changes and this is how the slimy toad now looks. It's the best it's going to look without starting it again. But definitely a huge learning curve, I'm glad I did it.

Cheers!