Fairytale Initial Letter Illustrations

Here are the final designs from the story-book style "initial letters" I have recently completed, as part of my first formal commission. Even though most rough designs I did had full colour, in the end, the decision was made for the finals to be in monochrome.
I have put together pages of some of my rough workings before each of the final illustrations so you can see how I progress. The letters will illustrate the capital letters of three short fairytale stories within a design that is to decorate a set of mugs.   

The Princess and the Pea: "O"   

Sleeping Beauty: "I"  

(You can see some more of the concepts and rough sketches for this one here)

   

The Ugly Duckling: "S"

 

The three of them together and scaled down:

All images are © Amy Holliday 2011, all rights reserved.
Please do not use or redistribute these images without asking me first!

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Horticulture

For my final project of the semester, and my final university project ever(!) I was asked to create a "man-made" font, due to the fact my tutors wanted to see me illustrate something that was not of the natural world for a change haha.

I ultimately decided to base my new typeface on the very interesting, old, rustic-looking gardening tools my parents have in thier garden shed.....I scanned most of my pencil drawings before I began to add colour to them: (click to enlarge)

After producing studies, I began to shape the tools into letterforms in order to make up a word to present my font:

Final piece: (click to enlarge)