Christmas Cards! 2013 edition.

I just sent our cards out to print...simple fun little illustration of Santa texting all the kids on his list apologizing for being late. It's like one of those 'sorry I missed your birthday' birthday cards. Although if the print turnaround is as fast as it has been, they might be on time! ...Which spoils the joke.

Anyhoo...

I started with the rough idea, chubby Santa sitting on the floor, texting. Really simple shapes. Piles of presents, a conveyor belt backing up, a frustrated elf.

Then I just jumped in, rendering the shapes, making line weights, and coloring. 

Fun, but it's just too much. I added some brush layers to separate the distances, some brush strokes to make it feel a bit less Adobe Illustrator-plasticky. And I decided to ditch the conveyor belt. Too distracting. This makes for an overall clearer, stronger illustration.