Hedgehog Tales

Happy December, first of all!


For the last little while I've been working on some digital illustrations=)
You might remember these little hedgehogs from my older posts
-- http://mariyaolshevskaexpressions.blogspot.com/2011/05/hedgehog-cactus.html
-- http://mariyaolshevskaexpressions.blogspot.com/2011/05/hedgehog-pine-cone.html

Anyhow, for my final Digital Illustration class project I decided to turn them into digital pieces and add some more hedgehogs into the series to create a mini story.

I think the story can be read in any order, but this one is the one I had in mind when I created the works. The gist of is that in the future world of extinction two little hedgehogs go on journeys to see if there are any others of their kind. Along the way they encounter a variety of other objects and animals....

See for yourselves:

Hedgehog + Pine cone

Hedgehog + Cactus

Hedgehog + Sea Urhcin

Hedgehog + Porcupine

Hedgehog + Hedgehog

And in case you're wondering about process, here's how it all went down.

1. Made a sketch:

2. Inked the sketch using the "pen" tool in Adobe Illustrator:

3. Painted the general colours using the" live paint bucket" tool in Illustrator:

4. Placed the image into Photoshop, where I added subtle gradients to each section, painted the background, and started to add a little texture to the grass with some grass brushes:

5. Applied various natural textures to the hedgehog, pine cone, grass, and overall image. I also adjusted the levels of the picture and ta-da!

*I also like this more papery version of the two hedgehogs together:

Credits:

Wrinkled Paper Sheet --- "Paper Sheet 002" by reflected-stock
Grass Brushes -- "The Ultimate Grass Brush Set" by charfade
Grass -- "Grass Stock" by Rai-Stock
Marble -- "Marble Texture" by hitorokiwa
and other paper texture --> "Parchment Paper"