I spent the weekend adding two new projects to Benkrefta.com's Projects page.

The Artist's Guide to Drawing Manga, which is my new tutorial book due out in two or three weeks time, as well as my G7 Leaders character art - promotional illustration I worked on for Save the Children. Like all the projects on the site, they're more or less quick overviews or case studies of some of the client work I've completed over my artistic career which I hope visitors will find interesting :)

Both of these took way longer than I'd anticipated. Some days consisting of 16+ hour stretches at the computer to get things done before deadline or sleeping over at the studio, so it's a relief to have them all done and dusted. Here's one of the G7 illustrations I produced and given a black and white manga screen-tone overlay:

Commission for Tegan

This was made as a gift for a Dad's daughter, Tegan. She's a fan of Japan, Dragon Ball Z and Card Captor Sakura, so it was cool to get a few references in there with her portrait.

I think this must be one of the few times I draw a seated pose, and I like the colours with this one. Looking back, my only regret is that the shoes should be closed-toe, but like with every picture, you do what you think is right at the time.

Commission for Jessica

This commission was drawn for a friend of Jessica. She needed to look like she meant business and went with a foreshortened perspective with this. I don't know what the dinosaur bone is about? I'm sure it has some significance.

I'm not a caricaturist by trade so adapting the art I do to look like someone specific but with a manga vibe is always a challenge. Is it possible to convert real people's features into a simplified and stylized manga form (such as Pokemon, Dragonball) while managing to retain a likeness?

Birthday cake

This anime style portrait illustration was created for a a young family's twin daughter's Birthday. Made with the intention of being printed on a birthday cake. I wonder how it looked in the end? Or how it tasted?