Russ Daff-illustration: Beer and Birds!

Being a freelance illustrator and cartoonist has it's ups and downs, you have to learn to accept the rough with the smooth but one of the best things, in my opinion is that I never know who is going to ask for my services next. And last year proved this point. I got a call from a local brewery wanting a number of pump clip designs for there collection of beers.

The client was Saffron Brewery and the brief was an interesting one. The owner wanted a strong theme running through the designs in the form of a pheasant character that would act as a brand identifier. This was a dream job combining beer and cartooning, one I took on with relish!

This is an ongoing project and hopefully many more delicious beers will need designs to accompany them.

For this project I decided to try and create images that were not too modern and slick. With this in mind I dug out my Staedtler pens and inked these images by hand before scanning them in and colouring them in Photoshop. This is the technique I had used for many years before progressing to digital inking. Real, physical inking is a joy it has to be said. I just love it but digital inking makes sense, although it does take some getting used to.

Here are the designs I have done to date...