Scribbles & Scribings

click to enlarge

The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Rooster is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts.

This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the background is the Chinese character for the Rooster. He deserves a closeup, don’t you think?

This colorful fellow took quite a while, but I can’t help myself. I love all the crazy details birds have. There’s another complex drawing on my drawing board right now, but I think one of the “simpler” animals will be the next one finished.

Another quicky for this week’s Illustration Friday topic, it seems like I keep coming back to wise old owls. Click the image to enlarge it.

This is another done almost entirely with the brush pen. The pen keeps getting “hairier” but as long as it still has ink I’m going to keep using it. I really like the soft texture it has now!

Well, it’s hard to post a drawing when I embodied this week’s Illustration Friday topic by failing to draw something new, so you all will just have to suffer with another from the archive:

The Tortoise and the Eagle (Click to enlarge)

This is another by good ol’ Aesop, which seems to cover the topic well enough: the fable of The Tortoise and the Eagle.

A Tortoise, dissatisfied with lowly crawling on the ground, envied the birds who could soar high into the clouds whenever they desired. One day, he offered an Eagle all the treasures in the ocean if she would only teach him how to fly. The Eagle declined the offer at first, but the Tortoise kept insisting and pleading. “Fine, I will teach you to fly,” said the Eagle and, taking him up in her talons carried him high into the sky. As she let go of him, she said, “Now, spread your legs and fly!” But before the Tortoise could say one word in reponse, he plunged straight down, hit a rock, and was dashed to pieces.

Moral: Demand your own way, demand your own ruin.

Yeah, he failed. Big time.