Beastly Beats and Creaky Chops

Sometimes you can spend hours trying to improve on a first sketch to little or no avail. Take the ones below, for example - a collection of musical monsters I came up with as a concept for a friend's website a while back.


Try as I might, every attempt to capture the 'squidginess' of the originals got lost in a mess of layers that rendered them all far too processed for their own good.

At times like these its often smarter to ignore all those mystical photoshop skills you've acquired in the wee hours meeting deadlines. Far better to make a few clicks of the polygonal lasso (never mind paths - the pencils will hide the jagged edges!), a couple of flat fills and a dabble with the much maligned Brightness/ Contrast slider (Levels, surely!).

Here are the results. My own very simple, very squidgy power-trio* all set for a monster jam. And finished just in time to beat the dog to my side of the bed.

Monsters of Rock

You'd think by now I'd have some inkling as to when to stop. Maybe I'm trying a bit too hard to 'show my chops' in my old age. That or I'm too decrepit to get out of my chair at the end of the day.

*The other two had left by then to form top creature-delic folk duo 'Finns and Tootles' - currently touring Working Monster Clubs across the UK.