I chose to draw tigers for the theme of my most recent own-brand fightwear project. Specifically, the style I drew these tigers is based on the popular traditional Chinese watercolour form of tiger paintings.
I created three different tiger poses and began each one with a basic pencil sketch. After several drafts, I scanned in the sketches and drew over the top using Manga Studio Pro. I chose this program because the brush/pen tool gave a really lovely fluid line that I felt was perfect for drawing fur and tiger stripes. I then saved these as PNG files and opened them up in Adobe Illustrator for Live Tracing and colouring.
The reason I love the Chinese depiction of tigers is their very heroic posing. It makes for a very eye-catching composition, albeit slightly unnatural looking. I mean, I don't know if real tigers crane their necks in the same manner and clamber up massive mountain peaks only to stand there and, sort of just look cool. If I was a tiger, I know I would definitely do that!
Anyway, these drawings went from pencil sketch to digital painting onto the final clothing product without any drama, I'm very pleased with the way they turned out!
My Midnight Tigers are available to buy over at my
store.
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