University Mascot Character Design

Recently I was commissioned by Turkel Advertising in Miami, Florida to do a character design for Barry University. They needed a redesign for their parrot buccaneer mascot Bucky.

The first step was to draw sketches of numerous different pirate parrots, in Corel Painter using my Wacom Intous 4 tablet, to narrow down the direction we wanted to focus on.

After that was completed, finding the right combination of clothing, hat and what the character was going to be holding in his hands was the next step.

The next step was to create various color comps in Photoshop to get the colors right before going to final art. When we had what the character was going to look like wired, I went to final art and completed Bucky in Adobe Illustrator.

I also created color comps of Bucky for a costume design company to use as a guide in making a mascot costume.

Check out the final art along with 3 of the many ideas created in the process.

Lemme know what ya think.

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Kid Stuff Winter Catalog Cover

I recently illustrated another fun piece for the great folks at Kid Stuff for their winter 2013 catalog. Its great to see kids have so much fun with toys and I wanted to capture that joy in this piece. I posted an earlier blog on Oct. 1 that shows a super rough gesture sketch of how I wanted the composition to be. It was a challenge to fit all the elements, the client requested, into such a vertical format and leave room for the logo and some type but I do love a challenge and believe it came out great. What do you think?

Thank you Kid Stuff for the opportunity to create such fun pieces and I look forward to many more....you all rock!!!!

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My New Email Campaign

Check out this email campaign I am doing through Agency Access that is sent out to folks in the advertising industry. It is the first installment in a series I have in capturing the challenges art buyers face in a humorous way. I decided to use a fun B/W doodle illustration style which incorporates use of already existing color images I have done in my digital airbrush style.
I wanted to do something more than just show an existing illustration to attract work, I wanted to create something that is designed for this particular campaign and have art buyers relate to it.

I have included the ad in its entirety which includes the copy I had written for it.  

Waddayathink? All comments and/or suggestions are welcome. 

-Fian

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How I Begin An Illustration

Starting on the illustration for a Winter catalog cover for Kidstuff. Here is how it all begins with a super rough gesture drawing to work out the composition, work out perspectives and get a flow going. Its a restaurant scene with kids playing with a wind up toy product, so I want to make the product the hero of the image.  I'll post further developments later. Its always fun seeing how the finished paintings are transformed from something as simple and rough as this. Lemme know what you think....thanx!

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How Fian Arroyo Art Has influenced Others

A childhood friend Chris Maggio, who is now a successful medical illustrator wrote me these kind words on how my art had influenced him early on...makes me feel good to know when my talents have helped others. Thanx Chris! Check it out:

You might laugh at this, but your name actually came up many years ago when I was in college... I was doing a paper in an art history class and was tasked with writing about artists through the ages, people that strongly altered or influenced our artistic direction. I had Giotto, Brunelleschi, some of the other ancient standards, and... Fian Arroyo. The instructor assumed I was pulling names outta my ass and questioned me on this "Arroyo fellow", as he couldn't find him in the books, and inquired to which century did he live, and who were his contemporaries. I explained that you were an 8 year old childhood friend... and we lived in a now-lost paradise. He raised both eyebrows, so I described watching you curl simple gesture lines with a paintbrush on brown butcher paper, how the quiet strokes of the cheap brush soaked in dark smelly poster paint became a cougar with extended claws and long swooping body. How I went home and painted for hours trying to get that simplicity to work, and how frustrating it was to not get it right the first time, (or the thirtieth time), as I saw you do. How, Fian, sitting on the hardwood floor in the hallway of his dark house easily breath out lively images while I mimicked. The professor's response was "Oh, I meant classical artists, but I guess that works." Don't let that go to your head! HAHA But I did soon find my own niche and have been making my mark ever since. But, thanks for the free lessons! I owe you a beer.