Monster Illustration for Mobile Game in Vector

This illustration was created completely in Adobe Illustrator using all vector shapes and layer effects.  I had been asked to create a monster illustration for a children's mobile game project providing all assets in Illustrator.  I was given several reference images for a variety of monster styles.  Since one of my own monster characters fit the bill, I decided to waste no time designing a new one and just get down to the nitty-gritty Bezier curve handle-ing.

But, before I opened Illustrator to lay down points, I pulled out my Fujitsu Lifebook with penabled screen and made a concept sketch on Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to keep me on track during the production phase of the Illustrator project.  The sketch was done is a 20 minute sitting and the Illustrator project took a Sunday evening to complete.

A little about how this character was created in the first place.  He, or it, started out as a sketch done while living in South Korea using a mechanical drafting pencils primarily .05 for base and .03 for sharp details.  I was just going with the flow on this one and could see his image on the paper (if you can understand what I mean).  I call it the Monoptic Finger Alien because his legs are flexibly jointed fingers with distinct finger characteristics of knuckle lines, finger nails and rounded ends like finger tips - as to distinguish them from the typical non-jointed, point-tipped structure of tentacles.  The sketch below is lightened to clean up the background of the sketchbook page, but the original drawing lines are darker as I don't care for light handed sketches.