Fish eye lens

Today's warm-up sketch was Pleco the fish. The duck was tough. But not a lot to work with there either. I think the fish and the duck will be fun to draw in some situations, trying to figure out just the right way to convey certain emotions with fins and beaks, and very little human features to use other than their eyes. At least with the lead character, a Hamster there's a mouth in the equation.

Fish story

I got an email from someone asking, "...what was the deal with the fish?" It was an illustration for Northern Ohio Live magazine, for the poem Pleco by Michael Salinger. Here is a scan of the magazine page where it was originally published. Click on the image to read the poem.