For this project we were instructed to create a sketch of a monster of our own design, take that sketch and turn it into a painting in photoshop. We were then to use the painting to build a trading card for our monster, complete with illustration and some interesting facts. I chose to base my card on the Austro-Bavarian Christmas demon; The Krampus. 

In the early stages it soon became clear that this project was much to large for the confines of my somewhat modest sketchbook. So the plotting began and plan was formulated. I would first create the three most prominent pieces of the illustration each on their own page to ensure that they were large enough to show the detail I was going for. My initial inspiration was based on various illustrations found littered throughout Austro-Bavarian folklore.  

Once the first three were drawn I scanned them in so that they could be brought into Photoshop and properly scaled and arranged. I then printed that piece; which is shown below and to the left, and drew in the remaining material to finish my sketch. 

After bringing the completed sketch into Photoshop I utilized a Japanese illustration technique where the entire piece starts off as a single shade of brown, individual pieces are then isolated and the hue and saturation are then altered to reach the desired color while keeping all the colors present complimentary. 

After completing the illustration I moved onto designing the trading card. I wanted the card to be simple and straight forward so I went with a brief narrative describing the creature and included some interesting aspects of its lore. Because of the strong Germanic influence surrounding much of the current day practices involving Krampus I also designed a German translation.