Pert Pink Pig

The successful shading of Pig required a different technique from Artichoke. Spiky shading technique on Pig spells DISASTER. It looked like Zebra Pig. So I used little hatch marks. They may look like they were deftly placed, but each hatch mark is shaped by several strokes - first, a big fat photoshop round paintbrush stroke, then carved out using eraser tool, to achieve that wood-chipped-away feel, characteristic of wood cut.

Pig held snout downwards in my first pencil draft. I decided he looked too doom and gloom, as if he knew he was on his way to the dinner table. Can't have a sour-mood pig on a restaurant menu! Must have happy, pert pig. So, his head is tilted up, and he gazes into the horizon. I made a conscious attempt to not make the Pig too cute. I am cursed with cute drawing style when it comes to animals. It has everything to do with eye placement, smiling, and body proportions. The eye should actually be higher, closer to the ears (according to my google pig photo research). This pig has a mona lisa smile, the kind of no-teeth smile that I tell my clients to make when posing for a head shot. Relatively big heads make characters cute. I think this pig head is normal.

I colored him in. When coloring in photoshop, I experience the same glee as coloring in coloring books as a kid. Except I don't need to worry about going outside the lines, and I can change my mind about palette. There is something incomparably satisfying about coloring in.