Michael McCabe is entered in the “Strange Behavior Challenge” update: View Challenge Page
Latest Update: Concept Sketch or 3D pre-visualization: Little Red Riding Hood
Strange Behavior (Illustration) Entry: Michael McCabe
Mr-Mike
#2
Hello everyone, this is my first anything on this Forum.
This a rough pencil of a concept I have for Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs to finally go on the offensive and take the fight to the Big Bad Wolf.
This is still at the extremely rough idea stage but think old school Fairy Tales meets Special Ops.
Mr-Mike
#3
Here is one of the Little Pig Commandos that I’ve begun to work up with a bit more detail.
walrus
#4
Awesome character design! Can’t wait to see the rest of them… Will they have any motifs to tie them into their traditional choice of building materials? compositionally, if might be nice to do something more with the right half fo the image… a bigger or more ominous house maybe? If nothing else, some trees on the far right to help frame the composition (or at least the area with the house) could be nice. But anyhow, looking great, I really love this last character sketch and can’t wait to see more!
NinjaA55N
#5
Once again the best illustrators come at the end 
Im so glad u joined this challenge coz that means another great piece of art. I really love the whole idea and style u have. I agree with walrus that the right side of the image is a bit empty at the moment but I know that many things can be fixed only with light and dark areas, so its too quick to judge this. Great job so far, good luck!
walrus
#6
Blaz, with 67 days left in the Challenge, you can hardly call this “the end.” Heck, 5 cChallenges ago, 67 days left to go would have been just the beginning!
Mr-Mike
#7
Thanks for the comments guys and I agree with both of you that the right hand side of the page is lacking compostionally, I like Walrus’ idea of developing the house more giving it a bigger role.
unf0rg1v3n
#9
Mr-Mike - awsome and extremelyh tight pencil work! and again, just as walrus suggested the right side compositionaly is missing and seems detached. Another suggestion would be to not have the tree in the forground which would help unify your composition, and having the “big bad worlf” board implied or just less prominent in the pieace, would definitely help it also… anyway, hope to see more sketches and concepts soon!
Mr-Mike
#11
Wow am I ever slow, I’ve got to step it up or I see some all nighters coming.
Here is my first attempt at Little Red Riding hood.
walrus
#12
Glad to see you’re still working on this! Her head looks a bit distorted - nothing that can’t be fixed with Free Transform, though. But then, may of us have a tendency to draw at one slant or another… Try flipping the image horizontally and seeing how it looks to you, it may be easier for you to spot the issues if you try that.
Good luck!
Mr-Mike
#13
I’ll give it the old flipperoo in photoshop, I never think to do that, thanks for the suggestion.
Walrus, what hardness of pencils do you use for your final line work and what kinds of paper do you use? For this style all I’ve ever used has been Blue pencil for my finished line and then I have to play with differing layers (multiply) to get the weight I like. I was admiring your line work and wondering what you used.
walrus
#14
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say! My guilty secret is that I’m mostly using plain old office pencils: Papermate American Naturals HB2. Although honestly they don’t feel like HBs to me, they feel softer, like around a 3B. (I also touch up the outlines a bit with Staedtler Mars Lumograph 4Bs.) I do my final linework on a 55lb tracing vellum - it’s see-through enough to tape my printed line art and see it clearly, and it’s heavy enough to not crinkle easily when I work with it. I have a pad of 11x14, but for this Challenge’s entry, I went out and bought a nice huge sheet so that I could make my line art really large - 13 x 21 inches! And that’s another trick to getting good line art - work large enough that you can really give it the detail it needs.
Anyhow, hope this helps. Good luck!
Mr Mike I love your style and your idea. I hope you follow the idea through to completion. My one critique for your last image is that althought the pose is very dynamic, the length of the legs is too obviously different. I’d suggest either angling the pelvis more (or at least so we notice the angle) or make the left leg longer and just bend the knee more.
Walrus I’m curious, if you draw your line art that large, how do you scan it?
SteevieWoo
#18
Well how sleek she is! I love that twist on a former cheesy character! Lets see more!!
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