Ninja Pirate is the new video and film production company of Jason Jhung. We’ll also be working on a website in the next few months, but I really love this little illustration.

I had drawn something a little less “cute” originally. My sketches were okay, but not exceptional. Then, while looking at different illustration styles online, I came across examples of Manga and, specifically, Chibi — a specific style of illustration you may know from things like the Power Puff girls, marked by giant heads and relatively little detail.

Several iterations later, this little guy came to life, first on my sketch pad at the dining room table, then finally in Illustrator.

I don’t usually share things like this, but I think the evolution is interesting…

The first four are my initial ideas/pitches to the client. You’ll notice that the last guy in the series is pretty close, except for his right hand. One of the marks of the chibi style of illustration is almost no detail in the hands — they’re just little knobs. So that’s finally what we settled on for this guy.