Sometimes life doesn't go where you expected it to. Over a decade ago I got an art degree. Eventually I became a US Marine. Currently I set supermarket displays four nights a week. After leaving active duty, I considered going back to a trade school to add the technical skills and contacts to get a career in art. But the trade school was actually more expensive than an actual college. And since I'd been an IT manager in the Marines, I eventually got an MBA. So I could set up product displays at night in supermarkets. Anyhow, the point is, I still do a bit of art and/or design from time to time, to keep some skills and to stay sane. I've done a couple logos I'm quite proud of and designed a couple t-shirts. I've just never managed to get into a position to charge anyone for my work. So when a friend was looking for someone who could "draw good" to do a T-shirt for him, I decided to take a shot at it. The catch is, what I'm trying to do is a sexy girl beaver and a sexy girl duck, drinking mugs of beer (it is for a bunch of Oregon drunkards). DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO DRAW A SEXY BEAVER, LET ALONE A SEXY DUCK!?!?!? Their anatomy is totally wrong! Shit. I'm going to have to go to "furry" sites for reference material. [Edit: And I am shocked and appalled to learn there apparently is/was a superhero called Squirrel Girl. ]
Yeah. So I scratched the duck off the design. Oregon Ducks fans will just have to suck it. Turned out I didn't need it for the design and I just can't make it work--at least not for free. Doing anthropomorphic characters is tricky. Then when you have to figure out how to make them sexy--but not creepy it gets a lot harder. Then if you add in a non-mammal, that just raises the level of difficulty. The anatomy is completely wrong. So you either chuck it and just make it humanoid with a beak, webbed feet, and a tail, or you try to stick to "duck" and have to figure out how something with wings would hold a beer mug. The temptation is to rip off either Daisy Duck, or do a female Daffy Duck--but you can't combine the two. And if you try to make it different enough that it isn't an obvious ripoff, you lose the advantage of a familiar icon and find yourself going "ducks don't have eyes that big". Finally, if you're going to do a cartoon beaver--and you make that work. And you're going to do a cartoon duck--and manage to make that work, then you've still got to figure out how to make the two work together, stylistically. They have to look like they belong in the same image and not have wildly diverse styles. Fuck it. They're getting a hot girl beaver, drinking a beer.
Order back issues of Hustler magazine for their "Beaver Hunt" segments - that should give you some sort of template!
Alright, here's the trick to sexy animals. All you have to do is make the head look primarily like a cartoon version of the animal, then draw the body of a human with the appropriate tufts of fur or feathers. For example, here's a chipmunk: And a rabbit: Hope that helps.
