165: The Great Pretender

Illustration Friday's theme of pretend painted an image in my head fairly quick – that of a half-mechanical "pretend bird" caricature, featuring a spring-loaded musical note shooting from a wide-open beak. Early doodles on a piece of grid paper reflected this, but somewhere along in the process my allegiances switched from the original concept to what you see here – a far less literal interpretation featuring the original musical note which now may or may not appear spring-loaded anymore (nor the bird mechanical). But since my intentions were honest – and I mostly devoted myself to the cause – I figured I'd still enter this under Illustration Friday's theme. I'd be more worried if I never diverted from an illustration's original course.

Drawn in varying thicknesses of Pigma Micron pen (mostly the .005 and .05 nibs, brush pen and Graphic 1 pen), then scanned and coloured in Photoshop. The musical note and surrounding circle were created in Illustrator and stitched into the line art before colouring. For a bigger and better look at the detail, please click here.