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   X! (as in Strike!) ...
The X is not the easiest of letters to design. Trying to come up with a caption that starts with X and the thing fitting inside the shape always is a problem for me. Bowling, with it's "X" for a strike, is a natural, but how to portray the X wasn't so natural to me. I couldn't write "Strike!" and leave it to the viewer to make the connection between S and X. Likewise, "X!" doesn't look like it should be pronounced "Strike!" It took awhile before I finally settled on the final form for the caption.


Click on any illustration for an enlargement.

The thumbnail idea thrashed about. I did quite a few of these sketches, playing around with the placement of the pins and the bowler's posture.

I was reluctant to use another bear for the bowler because another X has a bear in it ("X" Marks the Spot). I needed an animal that could assume a bowler's pose without looking like a human with an animal's head, limiting the number of candidates dramatically. I went with the bear...but a panda this time (huge difference).

The final drawing is basically the sketch after using reference material (also, the bowler is no longer lefthanded). Another thing about choosing a panda for the bowler: I liked the panda because of the balance of color...the black of the panda in the upper left and the black of the ball in the lower right, and, because of the white of the panda, there is now white in each of the X's legs.
The usual first step once the drawing has been transferred to the final surface: Watercolor to provide a background for the colored pencils and to hide the white of the paper when I don't want to see it.

Normally, when I'm done with this, the colored pencil stage, I will have completed around 95% of the work. This time, it was more, I think. I didn't have to do all that much after this stage was completed.

I tried to imply pin and ball action by deliberately blurring and "trailing" some of the hard edges.
The last step: A final punch up with acrylics.
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