King of Hearts is an illustration developed for "Mice" (Ratolas) deck of cards. A collection where each card was designed by a different artist sharing one detail, all of them are Mice.
The main goal was to illustrate the "King of Hearts" so that's why I've designed this cute guy full of heart diamond's and with a heart scepter all around him.

I like to believe that all my characters share the same world. Most of them are created in my cartoonish and happy own style - big eyes, always smiling and surrounded by colorful elements. This style is much probably inspired by all the cartoons and toys that I love to be constantly watching.

I always start with a piece of paper and a pencil to draw the main shapes and elements. Sometimes, I remake the sketch with my wacom before starting to vectorize. When my sketch is already digitalized there's time for some vector work and the first thing to do is define the main outlines with paths and strokes. Next to the outlines it comes the filling part when we decide all the color and complement with extra detail like for example the mouse's hair. The final step in illustrator is to fill all the artwork with shadows and glows, playing with the opacity with all the layers it may need. In the end I use Photoshop to add some extra gradients, texture and background.

The reaction have been surprisingly good. Since I published it on Behance, a seriously big amount of people have added it to their personal collections as for inspiration. That's quite an honor. Besides that, the number of views and appreciations were the largest I've had compared to all the other projects I've done. Also, I've been receiving a lot of illustration projects proposals.
:)

Filipe SJ

I'm a 24-year-old organization freak who claims to be a Designer.

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