Perch

I illustrated this bird based on a photo I took at a nature conservatory. I traced the outlines over the photo in Illustrator, then played with colours and gradients to make the shadows. I brought it into Photoshop to finish it up, where I played a lot with textures for the feathers. I ended up using a custom brush for it. I toyed with background colours a lot—who'd have thought you could spend so much time in the colour picker? I ended up liking this purpley blue against the orange of the bird's feet and beak.

This was a personal project, but I was picturing it being used for a hip restaurant called "Perch" or something like that.