Frank's Sketchbook Entry of the Day

After a volley of back-and-forth email about arranging times about getting together with friends, based on my comment "I was going to say tonight isn't great, as there are Things To Do but after 8pm would work." my friend commented:

I love, love, LOVE the way you characterized "Things to Do". I feel like somehow Things to Do has become a sidekick character in my life, but I don't know what he looks like. I picture him either being a little shlubby and not too well-dressed, or a refined elegant metrosexual with impeccably tailored clothing.

How could I pass up an obvious cartoon idea like that handed to me. Thus, I present version 1 of the sidekick.

Done almost entirely in Photoshop (I used Illustrator to make the speech balloons and the text). It was generally quick to do, although it doesn't have the "clean" lines that Illustrator produces. I was just going to make my friend be a normal person who, for some reason, has a sidekick, but then one of them used the term "social butterfly" and I realized that had to be my friend's Secret Identity. She also had to have wings and the required antenna (which often seem to be a required accent regardless of how appropiate it might be). It took some experimentation to find a combination of color gradient patterns for the wings that I liked. And then there was the inevitable logo, which was actually pretty easy. Both sidekick versions were going to have chest logos, but then it didn't fit for either (the list of Things To Do obscures the first one, and it wouldn't be fashionable for the second). I also decided there should be a little more of a background, just to provide some setting and make it a little more visually interesting. What took a little longer was creating the star fields, which was based on some online tutorials. And yes, Social Butterfly's base of operations is an orbiting space station. I have no idea why. Oh, and I also have no idea if she's a superhero or supervillain. I guess only time will tell, though the dialog tends towards the heroic.

Tomorrow will be version 2 of the sidekick.