MATS week 3 - Children's Books

I was probably most nervous for this week of Lilla Rogers's Make Art That Sells course. First of all, I haven't drawn characters (aside from my chipmunk cheek animals) in a long time (really ever?!). I also don't really do scenes. Characters + scenes = children's book. Anyhoo, coming off feeling great about last week's assignment- I decided to push my fears aside, create an illustration that felt like "me" and that I would be drawn to on a book shelf. The first part of the assignment was creating a tortoise character. I did a few pages of sketches/paintings- and felt like I landed upon something with these guys:

I really liked their texture, awkwardness, and googly eyes. For some reason I didn't want a green tortoise. I knew that for the final illo I wanted the colors to be informed by the scene/season. After doing these I felt like they belonged in a desert. The assignment was to illustrate the cover or a spread of The Tortoise and the Hare incorporating some hand lettering. Once I had them in the desert- I knew I wanted my lettering to be more "western" styled. Here's how my final turned out:

I love this color palatte! I experimented with some different textures/brushes in photoshop and really enjoy the result. I was able to complete this with a few days to spare (I worked hard early on because I felt a cold coming on and really wanted to just rest up this weekend). But in my experience work begets work- so I took the extra time I had and worked up this little pattern...

I think I have conquered my fear of characters (the googly eyes were key is this!). This idea of space cats was just floating aimlessly around my brain earlier in the week- so I had to follow through with it. The hubs thinks it would make a great sheet set and i have to agree.