Sugar Frosted Maggots ......step-by-step

When I was recently asked to contribute a creepy critter to Kreepsville Industries upcoming book, Cereal Killers, I took all of 2 seconds to jump at the chance. It was a ton o' fun to do and finally gave me an excuse to do my own "Wacky Packages" type illo. The book will be chocked full of ghoulish and ghastly cereal nightmares from a wide variety of artists, cartoonists, and animators. Looking forward to it!
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Step 1: Pencil sketch
I had a few ideas rolling around my skull for a couple weeks, but kept thinking about Maggie Maggot and her deliciously frosted friends. Since the image was pretty strong in my head, this is what came out initially (after one other reeeally bad drawing was laid to rest in the garbage). It was then scanned into Photoshop and type was decided upon, using an old Frosted Flakes box as reference. Scott Bruce's Cereal Boxes & Prizes: 1960's is an invaluable resource for the golden age of fun box art.


Step 2: Clean Up / Inks
The pencil drawing was then inked with Sakura Micron pens (on animation paper), scanned in again, and other design elements added to flesh out the piece. I kept everything in black and white at this stage to keep focus on the composition.


Step 3: Flat Colors
A limited palette of base colors were chosen.


Step 4: Final
Colored lines, shadows, highlights, and sugar frosting was added with various Photoshop brushes. Cropped a bit, and given a black background. Yum!