Urban Behaviour

Hello! Another work in progress is here. This time it's inspired by the word 'urban'. When I think of urban, I think of graffiti, hip hop and bold design. I chose to incorporate Vanilla Ice into the mix because I've had Ninja Rap stuck in my head for days. Now it's your turn!



And here is a little info on the American rapper also known as Robert Van Winkle:

Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper. Born in South Dallas, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Van Winkle released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 on Ichiban Records, before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group which released a reformatted version of the album under the title To the Extreme. Van Winkle's single "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts.

These are some reference images I used. Nice quaff!





Here are my thumbnail sketches:



I decided to go with this one:



I started with creating shapes for the hair and head. I added thick and bright strokes to contrast with the pastel fills:



I added more detail in the face, creating shapes for shadows and using the colour halftone effect to add some pattern. I did the same to add a lighter chunk to the hair:



I added in more detail with the eye and ears:



The next step was the text. I decided to go for just 'Ice' instead of the whole name. I created blue shapes with a bolder blue stroke:



I created a drop shadow effect behind it by copying the letters and changing the colour fill and playing with colour halftone effects again:



Then I added in green lines to make the text pop out more. This is the final design:



And here it is mocked up on a light blue t-shirt!:



I'm pretty happy with the overall design. I think I am going to continue with the stylized portraits and see what I can do with them! Until next time! :)