March 02, 2008

140: Failure To Leap

Photobucket
For Illustration Friday's theme of leap, I was inspired by the squirrel: nature's finest mammalian acrobat. My street is lined by stately, century-old American elms – a literal playground for these amazing critters – and my favourite manoeuvre is the tree-to-tree leap during the frantic, noisy and much-entertaining squirrel chase. I've heard stories, ranging from the ridiculous to the comical – to the squirm-inducing – of rare moments of squirrel leap failure, but I have yet to see it with my own eyes. But if I can imagine it happening something like in this illustration, I may chuckle.

I built this piece fairly quickly, first by creating the tree and squirrel as separate silhouettes in my sketchpad. Merged in Photoshop and complemented with a simple wintertime colour scheme, I borrowed a texture photo I took of some wood grain to lend to the tree trunk. The path of the falling animal was done in Illustrator and added to the main file, and lastly the edges and snow were included using some custom PS brushes in eraser mode, cutting away at the blue background.

24 comments:

Fourborne said...

Great illo.

Anonymous said...

lovin' it! :) creative.

Jannie aka Chickengirl said...

It was pretty funny for me to scroll down to see the ill fate of the squirrel. Funny!

claudine hellmuth said...

oh no! poor squirrel! LOL! I love the texture you have on the tree!

Teresa said...

Yes it is charming -- made me laugh too ;o)

Tony LaRocca said...

My favorite part is the dotted line showing the squirrel's path. Cute job.

Ars said...

I love it! So funny.

Roberta said...

Ooops! That's gotta hurt!
I really like your style.

Nina Seven N7 said...

very fun! I love it!

CREATIVEGoddess said...

Adorable! Great style.

Amy said...

Wonderful and very apt, I think.

Anonymous said...

I love this, it's absolutely great.

studio lolo said...

It would be hilarious to have the sound effects to go with this! Oh-ugh-eee-agh-yikes-splat!

BuitrĂ³n said...

Nice! :)

Nan said...

LOL!!! Great illo!

Ariel Gordon said...

Very nice.

Jeope said...

Wizzo! Thanks everyone.

Melinda said...

nice!

Anonymous said...

This is hilarious! I always stop to watch squirrel chases at my local park. Have not seen a 'capital fail' yet ;-).

Diandra Mae said...

Oh, that's hysterical! I've seen squirrels do some crazy things, but never fall! (Pretty close, though.) Wonderful movement! ha!

mattiaskall said...

Ha, ha. Really sweet.

imwithsully said...

This is awesome!

Digital Scott's Illustrationblog said...

Fun AND stylish!!! Great stuff!

Jack Brando said...

Hi. About a year ago you had a picture of a crow launching off a branch. This is the perfect crow for a tattoo idea i have. Would you mind if i used the image? Do you have a version with the wings included.? Please let me know if you can help me out.
The post was 57:crowfoot Thanks.

JB