Big Mouth

© Illustrator: Theblackrhino | Agency: Dreamstime.com

This topic has been on my mind for a long time. Maybe you too.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people don't realize that the microphone on their phones is so sensitive that they could whisper in the midst of roaring jet engines or clanking trains, and the other party will hear them clearly.

While sitting in my children's Karate class I started sketching an obnoxious man blabbing on his phone. I tried to keep his expression passionless, as if he was having an unemotional conversion. That would keep the emphasis on his loudness. Most people who I see like this are discussing mundane things anyway. I gave him a red shirt because that color tends to invoke negative passions. The bowl haircut is based on the Three Stooges.

Actually, the mouth was much smaller. After inking and scanning it, I selected the mouth in Photoshop and used Edit=Transform to scale it 30% larger. As usual, I brought it in Illustrator, traced it and that's when the fun began with colors and shading.

I've seen lots of "text bubble" images and I thought this would be a perfect candidate. Of course, someone could delete or replace it. I just hope it makes it more marketable.

First sale on BigStock!

Just had our first sale on Bigstock. The strangest illustration I've made so far—Organic Housefly Design—was quite desirable to someone!  It was quite fun to experiment with the label concept.

Like many things I draw, this was based off of the experience we've been having with the poor houseflies who keep getting stuck in our house!

Our First Sale on Dreamstime

© Photographer: Theblackrhino | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I'm very grateful to the first person to purchase one of my illustrations through Dreamstime.

This particular image was inspired by the poisoning of the oceans through our demands for fossil fuels. I am so passionate about this subject that I sold my car a few years ago. My family and I rely on bikes, public transit and feet.

Like most of my illustrations, it started as a sketch, inked, scanned and traced in Illustrator. From there I colored it in. The drilling platform was added from scratch upon recommendation of my daughter.

Hoping I can keep those kinds of sales going  up to a few times per day!

Illness Can Inspire Illustrations

My children came down with some nasty fevers this weekend. Not sure why. But I got the inspiration to sketch this one based on my daughter's misery! I hate to take advantage of them, but this one I could not resist!

Phasing out bad words

I find it interesting that when I used the keyword "negro" for this illustration of some African-American Nationalist flags, one stock site flagged it as a disallowed keyword.

I thought that might be overkill. However, being that the word—along with another word that is more offensive—are truly lousy words to use at present, I was glad to see such a restriction.

To purchase this image, search "NOI Flag" at Stockfuel.

So Many Ideas

I have been burning through quite a few pages of my sketchbooks, working on ideas, inking others. However, when trying to guess what others might want to purchase, I've been learning it's easier said than done. I'm trying some small projects with others while venturing into stock images. The journey has begun.

It All Started with A Water Main Break

Our first sale since starting Black Rhino Illustration was the Water Main Break night scene. This was also our first sale on the Shutterstock portfolio. Thanks for giving us a chance, Shutterstock! It was quite a surprise because this was one of our rejected files during the istock application process.

One lucky customer purchased the vector version of this for a bargain at 123RF.

Someone likes the drawings!

Some persons or person seem to like our drawings on our Shutterstock portfolio. Specifically, Muslim Teacher, Water-Main Break, Poisonous Mushrooms and Muslim Woman Praying. It is a giant catalog. So it is possible that these are all different subscribers. Regardless, it's very encouraging to witness.

Staring at Death

Our first sale for Staring at Death was on Fotolia, just a few days after submitting it. Trying my best to clearly illustrate the consequences of the recent BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, I hope this image can help prompt a global reexamination of our oil-based civilization.