In today’s blog post I want to write about my last illustrator and artist commission to draw wild animals of North America. I was hired by
Buffalo and Company, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA to create
illustrations for their new American wildlife t-shirt series label. The company specializes in a kind of a patriotic clothes design for hats, shirts, t-shirts, polo shirts etc. So they needed cool wildlife drawings to create classy t-shirts with the wild west feel. They wanted me to draw fish (
a bass and a rainbow trout), birds (
mallards (wild ducks)) and big animals (
a bison and an elk). In this post I will show you the final illustrations as well as a few videos I created specially to show you the process of drawing wild animals beginning from a pencil sketch to the complicated illustrations which have been made using the cross-hatching drawing technique. In the videos I tried to indicate the main milestones of the cross-hatching drawing process which might be interesting for those who want to know more how to draw cross-hatching.
I realize that you may think why a Ukrainian artist should draw north American national wildlife. Well, there are at least three reasons why I was chosen for this commission. The first reason is that the guys from Buffalo and Company seem to love my cross-hatching style after I had drawn them an illustration for their apparel catalog a few months ago. You can see the illustration below. It shows bisons grazing on a wheat field on the background of the mountains.
When I was drawing this illustration I was wondering whether the clients would love this cross-hatching style. And they did, and, furthermore, they got back to me with this new wildlife t-shirts project. The other reason is that the animals I have drawn are not something from the other planet for me as similar animals live in Ukraine too. We have bass, trout, mallards, deer (which are similar to elks), and even European bisons (we call them “zoobr”) also known as aurochs (scientifically Bison bonasus). So I know that some of these beautiful animals are really rare and every country can be proud of having such wonderful representatives of fauna on its territory since healthy and rich nature is a treasure of all nations. And the third reason why I was hired to implement this illustration project is my competitive prices for illustrations as for the time being I am looking for extending my independent, freelance illustrator’s portfolio and I am rather flexible about price issues.
But let’s go to the main topic of the post. I want to show the wildlife illustrations I have created and which, I believe, will help to make cool and classy wildlife t-shirts. The illustrations are accompanied with videos showing the drawing process. I guess that the drawing videos will make this post more interesting for artists and people who love pen and pencil drawing.
Bison and Elk Illustrations and Drawing Videos
Mallards (Wild Ducks) Illustrations and Drawing Videos
Fish (Bass and Trout) Illustrations and Drawing Video
I also created some cool banners for placing on t-shirts. I made a few banner options to choose from or mix and match on a t-shirt somehow. These banners are designed to create that old wild west feel. Here are how the banners look.
I think the guys from Buffalo and Company will take care of the further processing of the banners and the illustrations to perfectly fit them to the company’s t-shirts look and feel. I know that Buffalo and Company has developed its own clothes philosophy which they try to reflect in the apparel they design. This clothing is for those who honor their country, and I wish that every patriot of the USA, who, no doubt, honors America, would want to buy a t-shirt with my American wildlife drawings on it. I wish Buffalo and Company good luck in selling clothes and thanks for hiring me.
Updated on February 27, 2010. I am glad to announce that the first wildlife organic t-shirts with the buffalo drawing have been printed and are available in the
Buffalo and Company on-line store.
The release of other wildlife t-shirts is planned for the spring.
P.S. You can also see my other animals drawings and illustrations here:
My other wildlife illustrations for Buffalo and Co.
Bison drawing
Panda bears drawings and illustrations
Hunting and fishing drawings
Animals drawings and illustrations
Man and his dog portrait
Enjoy!
