"Mad Scientist with Brain!" is a self-initiated project that I wanted to use as a toy or game box art sample, using some eye-catching colors with a spooky Halloween or Frankenstein-like vibe...

As always, it starts with a REALLY rough sketch! I had the general idea in my head but wanted to lay down the big shapes, so scribbly like this is OK...

Here's the sketch again, (btw, using my trusty ol' Wacom Cintiq 21UX for all sketching and digital painting) now tight enough for me to proceed to the vector stage...

I'm a huge Adobe Illustrator fan and long-time user and can work quickly and comfortably with the Pen tool - so my particular process is to switch back to my desktop iMac and use vector at this stage to separate all the shapes...

Still in grayscale at this point, I will usually add new gray values, gradations and highlights in Photoshop. But for this one I did most of that still in Illustrator, using a combination of gradations, gradient mesh and blur effects...

The finished piece is at the top of the post; here below is a more detailed look, with all digital painting color, textures and special effects added on my Cintiq - fun stuff, really enjoyed this one!! Please see more of my 2D and vector character design and illustration work at www.kennyk.com and download my portfolio PDF at http://bit.ly/kennykiernan - thank you!​​​​​​​