Daily Quick Sketch: Smilin' Lion

Today's quick sketch is a smiling lion. If you want kids to laugh at your character, simply add a big toothy grin -- it seems to work every time. I was looking for a new style of lion's mane for this design, inspired by palm tree leaves . . .

A brush pen and marker drawing of a lion with a big smile

I drew a sketch of this lion several weeks ago when submitting an image for Illustration Friday. I decided to use another lion cartoon that was more comical and standing upright. The pencil sketch was on my desk, so I decided to ink and color the image using a new set of markers I just purchased.

I inked and colored over the pencil line this time, so there is no pencil sketch image this time around.

Illustration Friday: Sparkle

Illustration Friday: Every Friday a word is given on the website, IllustrationFriday.com. Artists and illustrators then submit an image that represents that word all during the week.
This week's word: Sparkle

Thought Process: It's been some time since I did any sketches for Illustration Friday. The word sparkle immediately made me think of the comical effect of "sparkling teeth" often seen in cartoons, commercials and comedies.

Cartoon lion with a shiny tooth/fang -- hand inked and then scanned into Photoshop for coloring

I remembered doing a pencil sketch of this cartoon lion seen below, except he wasn't smiling -- in fact I drew him without a mouth at all. So I added a huge toothy grin -- exaggerating the smile. 

The original pencil sketch of the cartoony lion (sans mouth)

To add the "sparkle", I had to darken the entire image in order to visually show the white tooth shine. It helped to texture the image, creating a slightly darker tone to help emphasize the sparkle.