This was a fun commission for my friends who brew craft cider (at a rate of about 100 bottles per year — it's a small business).
The client wanted me to create some apple-related bird character for the label. Here are my initial drafts:
At this point, the client realized they wanted a pirate bird instead:
This character was approved, so I cranked out a pencil draft of the label with the lettering in it (it reads "Blind Pew"):
I used this outline to make a super rough draft in Photoshop with better text placement:
I printed it out and loosely copied it (in pencil) onto a different piece of paper, and then went over that with ink:
I then scanned it, made it more high-contrast and made minor digital tweaks like adding droplets of ink:
And that was it! As a bonus, here it is on actual real-life bottles of varying sizes:
