Ollie the Otter (is up to no good)

If we've talking about surprising schemes in a  prank-obsessed river community, I wouldn't mind having this devilish otter on my side.

Ollie the Otter (Is Up to No Good) just has a nice ring to it, and a rhythm that's urging me to write on. I had a great time transforming what was originally a strange-looking pencil sketch of a cat into this character. Something still just wasn't looking complete until I slid a photo of a watercolor swatch I painted last year behind him. I switched the photo to "overlay" in adobe illustrator, adjusted the color, and then things were looking just right. I think the textured paint on paper contrasts in an interesting way with the flat character. It reminds me of older disney movies and saturday morning cartoons, back when the backdrops were handpainted, you could always tell which objects in the frame were going to move because they were rendered differently, flatter.

As always, a process snapshot (before Ollie's eyes go evil) :