A lot of the time when I'm contacted to work on new projects, I'm lucky in that I'm pretty much always contacted by the client because they want me to create something in my style. However, the content I have to create isn't always topics I have worked on before or have even drawn before, it's still always fun though, because it's a constant learning process. Then there's the odd email I get where I'm asked to create something in my style AND work from a topic I'm familiar with.

We don't need to talk about how much I love drawing zombies and the idea of them in general, they are always my go to when I'm stuck in a rut and don't really know what to draw in a morning. I'm also a massive gamer, I always have been since I was a child and they've been a huge and constant inspiration in my work. So when I recently received an email asking me to design a gamer zombie for a mousepad, I was over the moon! I've included 2 versions of this project so make sure you read to the end if you want to see both!

Pretty much the only requirements were that I designed a zombie with a VR headset on, so I had a lot of creative freedom with this one which is always a blessing when working with a client. Seeing as I did have so much freedom with it, I started out by sketching out some simple zombie ideas, each with slight variations so that I could offer the client a few different options for them to decide the best direction to go in.

The main feedback from the client was that they really liked the hair from option 1, and they also gave me some reference for exactly which VR headset and headphones they wanted me to use as inspiration. So keeping that in mind I took the hair from option 1 and put it onto option 3 as I felt in general option 3 had a better pose and looked like the better zombie in general.

My line work has always played a really big part of my style and I feel like I've lost that a lot over the last few months, I'm not sure why but I think I've felt overwhelmed by a lot of things so my focus has been in the wrong areas when it comes to my work. So I tried to create a lot more weight variation in my lines on this one and I wanted to make sure the lines created an impression on their own before I added any colour.

This project required a quick turnaround so I didn't really do much experimentation with this one as I'm pretty confident in my process and technique now so I knew I could get it done in plenty of time. It's all fun creating digital work until it comes to printing, because the same level of detail and effects can't always be achieved once the work is printed. The client wanted to keep the piece quite simple with a flat colour background to ensure that the final design looked the best possible when printed.

I am known for liking to go all out with the effects though! So I thought I'd also share the version I originally did before we had to strip it back a bit for print.

Thanks for reading guys!

I got to design a zombie mouse pad!