Mischwesen

This illustration was deliberately created for the Rheinwerkverlags illustration contest. I knew pretty fast I wanted to create a creature that was part snail and part cat, to play on my strengths straight away. For this reason I did a few fast sketches to whip up a creature design.

I settled on a stretching "snait" rather quickly. At first she was supposed to yawn, but I already threw that idea out of the window with the next iteration. I wanted to be able to show a cute face instead.

I inked the last sketch, but added a baby "snait" on top of the adult one. I had the feeling a little more story might improve the drawing.

I color-filled into the inks afterwards. But I realized quickly that the picture would look more intriguing without lines, so I started working on making them redundant. I could also play on my skills with negative forms a little more this way.