Light Illustration Portfolio
Bright, colorful illustrations for mascots, character designs, comic books, websites, editorial, T-Shirts, and happy people
Light Cartoon, Comic & Mascot Illustrations
By Brian Allen
Being a freelance illustrator for hire, I've developed the ability to illustrate in many different styles. In stark contrast to my darker style, I also really enjoy illustrating characters, mascots, and illustrations in a bright, detailed, and often humorous comic book style.
My clients hire me to design and illustrate for all types of projects, including website banners, album covers, mascot designs for sports teams and branding, editorial illustrations for magazines, book covers, and more.
Custom artwork for your project:
My illustrations have been used for many different applications, including:
Branding and packaging designs
Website backgrounds and banners
Editorial and magazine illustration
So Let's Do This!
Tell us about your project today so we can get to work
Check out my other portfolio categories
Custom Illustrations for packaging design, comic books, mascots, web banners, editorials, and T-Shirts for the lighter side.
Custom Illustration for silk-screen and direct-to-garment T-Shirt designs.
LOGO / BRANDING
Custom Graphic Design for logos, branding, identity, and packaging.
MASCOT DESIGN
Custom character design and mascot illustration for sports teams, websites, brands, and logos.
ALBUM COVER DESIGN
Album Cover and gig poster design and illustration for rock and heavy metal bands.
Sleep Around T-shirt Designs
Sleep Around, Scott Cerkoney
I was hired to create a series of t-shirt designs for a camping brand called Sleep Around, featuring Bears, raccoons, and a family enjoying camping in tents, RVs, and travel trailers. I illustrated the characters in a whimsical cartoon style to portray a fun, easy-going lifestyle.
Hang Lucy's Tiki Bar Artwork
Hang Lucy's
Hang Lucy's, a large tiki bar in Grand Bend, Canada, hired me to create a series of murals, t-shirts, and logo designs for them. The murals and t-shirts featured loads of mermaids, Poseidon, tiki totems, flying sea turtles, and surfing parrots.
For the logo design, we created a hula girl character serving a tray of tropical drinks, making the "hang loose" sign with her hand.
The murals were printed on vinyl, and wrapped on huge ten foot shipping containers that were turned into tiki bars.
THOSE ARE AMAZING!
-Troy James Hogg
Owner, Hang Lucy's
Innova USDGC Event Poster
The United States Disc Golf Championship
The United States Disc Golf Championship and Innova hired me to create the poster for the 2019 Championship event. I illustrated a tough looking disc golf player on one of the most infamous and difficult holes on the course, with a patriotic eagle above. I'm very happy that my artwork is now part of the history of this important event in the Disc Golf world.
40th Anniversary Haunted Mansion T-shirt Design
Client: FunLand Rehoboth Beach Description: Funland in Rehoboth Beach hired me to create a t-shirt design for their iconic Haunted Mansion, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year! It's such an honor to be adding to the history of this historic and cherished icon on the boardwalk of Rehoboth. I still remember my first time riding through this haunted house when I was barely young enough to see over the bars. Walking by still creeps me out a bit to this day. We set this shirt up for silk-screening, limited to 6 colors. To see more of my work, or hire me for freelance projects, please visit my website: www.flylanddesigns.com
Chesapeake Inn T-Shirt Designs
Chesapeake Inn
A series of T-Shirt illustrations I created for the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant featuring their crab mascot doing all sorts of activities, but mostly running around and drinking. These designs were set up for silk-screening with limited colors.
Great Dane Graphics Batch 2
Great Dane Graphics
Cartoon Narwhal mother and baby splashing in the water, drawn in a colorful whimsical style. And an equally charming sloth character, both available for licensing!
Martin County Fire-Fighter Character T-Shirt
Martin County North End Fire Station
Martin County Fire Department hired me to illustrate a crazy fire fighter character for their t-shirts. I illustrated a fire truck based on photos they sent me and included landmarks from their town. Had a lot of fun with this one. To see more of my work, or hire me for freelance projects, please visit my website: www.flylanddesigns.com
Philadelphia Flyers Mascot Design Gritty
Philadelphia Flyers Mascot Design
Client: Philadelphia Flyers
Description: The Philadelphia Flyers, the NHL hockey team, hired me to design the costume for their new mascot, completely from scratch. I began the project by sketching over 20 different possible mascots, including, bats, bulls, groundhogs, dragons, tough guys, yetis, and even a flying squirrel. Once the client saw the sketches, they picked a big dumpy monster I had drawn as the starting point. After several iterations, including different wing styles and facial expressions, we landed on their new mascot, which I had nicknamed "Benny." Once the sketch stage was complete, I drew the monster in a turn-around to help the costume designers get an idea of how the mascot looked in three dimensions. This will easily be one of the most memorable projects of my whole career, and it's an honor to be part of the team's rich history permanently.
READ THE WHOLE STORY…
Thank you again for all your great work throughout the project! Appreciate the quality work, quick turnarounds and accommodating the many changes we sent your way.
–Ben DiCandilo Philadelphia Flyers, Marketing Manager
Hulk Hogan Beach Graphics
Hogan's Beach Shop
Super humbling to be able to work for one of my childhood heroes, Hulk Hogan. He owns a beach shop down in Florida, and liked my colorful beach graphics. We created a few designs for his shop that involves their Shark mascot punking the Hulkster in different ways. Very easy guy to work with, and tons of fun, BROTHER!
4'20 Somewhere Parrot t-shirt
Bongjour
I illustrated this t-shirt design for Bongjour in conjunction with the popular Chief Greenbud to celebrate his song "It's 4:20 Somewhere," a parody of Jimmy Buffet's tune. The design was printed as full-color direct to garment. For this design, I tried a new technique: instead of inking the design, I just scanned in my pencil drawing (which was done on paper) and colored the piece underneath the pencils. I'm pretty happy with the result – it gives it a more realistic, and vibrant, and softer feel.
Chick-Fil-A Rival Restaurant Graphic Wrap
Client: Chick-Fil-A Description: The Award-Winning marketing agency McCann of New York hired me to reinterpret the iconic Auburn and Georgia mascots in my own style for graphics that wrapped a massive Chick-fil-A pop-up restaurant on the Georgia/Alabama state line. My artwork was featured in a nationally televised television commercial created by Chick-fil-A to showcase the #RivalRestaurant marketing event. Chic-fil-A was so happy with the artwork I created, they printed the artwork on signage, apparel, and giant wooden cut-outs at the event Check out the Nationally Televised commercial here featuring the artwork: https://youtu.be/ot_foiMbwiA
Explorer / Adventurer Kid In Temple Book Cover
I wanted to create a an illustration as a sample to try to get work from young-adult fantasy book publishers, a market that I'd like to do more work in. I chose a scene with an adventurer in an Aztec-like jungle temple so I could draw some funny and creepy totems – and I even got to sneak a skull in there too! I like to try different styles and themes whenever I can – keeps things from getting stale. I'm happy with how this turned out, and would like to do more in this genre.
This design is available for licensing:
Angry Mahi-Mahi Fish T-Shirt Design
Stylized angry mutant Mahi-Mahi fish I created for an apparel graphics company leaping from the water.
This was the first time I explored drawing fish in a more crazy creepy style, rather than realistic, and I love it.
Camel Toz T-shirt Designs
Kip Bogdan
This was a really fun series of apparel designs I illustrated for new outdoor lifestyle brand called Camel Toes, featuring an athletic camel mascot interacting with his female fans in different sports and fitness situations.
We tried to squeeze in as much activity, detail, and characters into each design that we could. The mascot himself was carefully designed in a way that made it easy to draw him doing all sorts of different activities. I also designed the logo and text style for the brand.
Miner Character for Game Packaging
D&G Florida Empire
Packaging design I created for the board game "Colliery Dominoes" featuring a fun cartoon miner I designed outside a cartoon mine.
It looks very, very good! It was a right choice to hire you.
-Gerardo Rodriguez
Owner, D&G Florida Empire
Mascot Designs For Boy Scouts of America
I was thrilled recently to work with Boy Scouts of America illustrating their Bear, Wolf, and Tiger mascots for a catalog that went out to all troops nationwide. We created illustrations that blended real studio photos of kids in Boy Scouts gear, and drawn into a comic book background. The marketing team hired me to reinvent the existing mascot illustrations in my own style. I was a Cub Scout long ago, so it was a lot of fun to leave a little mark on the organization.
Vaping Label Characters
Frank Rigo – Vape Factory
Pink brain in a jar mascot I illustrated for a character driven series of vaping labels I illustrated for the brand Vape Factory in the Czech Republic.
It's a fun challenge designing for such a small space (only a couple inches) – so I try to use bold colors and lines so you can really get a feel for the detail, and distinguish each flavor from the next.
Sabertooth Tiger Mascot
A wild, roaring sabertooth tiger head against a blue background.
This artwork is available for licensing:
http://www.flylanddesigns.com/licensing/
Flintstones Parody
Parody illustration of the crew from classic TV cartoon The Flintstones crammed into Fred's iconic foot-powered vehicle.
Police Force Tribute T-Shirt Design
Traxier Printing
I created this t-shirt design in conjunction with Traxler Tees to commemorate a tragic police shooting in Westerville where two police officers lost their lives in the line of duty.
Traxler hired me to create a design that illustrated police officers in general as bold and proud, which they later sold to raise significant charitable donations to support the department and their families.
Im *** crying man.
-Zachary Traxler
Owner, Traxler Printing
Education Game App Monster Character Designs
The nice folks at Scholastic hired me to draw concept illustrations for characters in a redesign of an educational app called Sushi Monster, in which kids solve math problems with a friendly but terrifying sushi chef. I explored a lot of different character sizes, shapes, and attitudes. We initially thought the best direction would be to create the main characters as zombies, and the supporting characters as other types of monsters. Unfortunately, due to a gypsy curse, the project was cancelled in the early stages before we had a chance to really get going.
Panama City Beach T-Shirt Illustration
T-Shirt illustration I created for a Panama City touring company of a happy beach-going parrot pointing at a crossroads sign with different beaches.
I'm really enjoying improving this beach-centric colorful cartoon style. It's always a fun and relaxing thing to work on when I need a break from the dark details of some of my other work.
Youth Underwater Themed T-Shirt Templates
I created this series of colorful kids illustrations of a clownfish and a mermaid in an underwater scene for a t-shirt template.
You can license the artwork here:
Hard Rock Cafe T-Shirt Designs
Hard Rock Cafe, in conjunction with Tremendous Graphics
T-Shirt designs I illustrated for Hard Rock Cafe, in conjunction with Tremendous Graphics. I had the privilege of designing the shirts for many iconic cities for each of the Hard Rock shops from all over the world, including Tokyo, Miami, Yankee Stadium, Amsterdam, and more.
The Art Director provided me with a detailed brief of each city, and a list of items and landmarks that Hard Rock Cafe thought would best convey the character of each city. I then drew up three detailed thumbnail sketches for each design, and sent them to the Art Director for approval. Once the best sketch was picked and refined, I set out illustrating the design in a combination of Manga Studio 5 and Adobe Photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq 24HD. It was a fun challenge to squeeze in so many different elements, while trying to keep the design from becoming too busy.
"Brian's work excels with fresh creative flair while paying close attention to all requirements of the Design Brief. Brian Allen is "The Man" when you want fast, top quality art that hits the target every time."
Universal Game Illustration
Cryptivo Games
One of my favorite projects from last year: a t-shirt illustration for Cryptivo Games' hit The Universim, a really cool world building game. If you've ever played the game before, you'll recognize these cute little spherical people that are the inhabitants of the world you build. It was challenging to give the characters emotion and energy without using mouths (not to mention feet!). The illustration was used for a t-shirt and poster for the Gamescom conference.
Surfing Shark T-Shirt Illustration
Client: Great Lakes T-Shirt Company Tiki Bar:
Beach T-Shirt template of a happy tiki chief lounging near a beach bar.
Shark and Surfboard: I created this t-shirt illustration of a surfing cartoon shark for a children's line of beach themed clothing. The shirt uses special inks that only appear in the sunlight – so when indoors, the shirt appears as just the lineart. Once you take the shirt outside, the colors magically appear. It's a really cool effect. Gator On Beach:
T-Shirt template I illustrated of a carton gator mascot in a tropical beach setting.
Client Testimonial: Looks great, Look forward to getting it printed! -Matt Whelpton Great Lakes T-Shirt Company This design is available for licensing https://www.flylanddesigns.com/licensing/
This is an illustration I created for Great Dane Graphics, of a polar bear, penguin, dog, and cat singing a christmas carol out in the street. The graphic is for their Holiday catalog. Created in Manga Studio 5 and Adobe Photoshop. This image was a part of a series of Christmas themed illustrations.
Sasquatch Guitar Player for Gig Poster
Squatchfest Kane, PA 2017
#Festival #poster I designed for Squatchfest this Saturday in Kane, PA featuring the most famous #Sasquatch #BigFoot himself coming out of hiding and playing with a lot of great bands. Had a ton of fun with this – great to give back to my once temporary home-town.⠀
One word! Awesome!!!
-Tracy Smith
.⠀
Shakedown Vaping ejuice Label
Adrenaline Vapors
New line of e-juice from Adrenaline Vapors that I illustrated the labels for, featuring a has-been 80's headbanger screaming into his microphone and dropping his gut.
When we were finished, I provided the labels in a variety of different colors to be used for each flavor in the line.
Love everything about it!
-Michael Friday
Owner, Adrenaline Vapors
Light the Lamp T-shirt Design
Circle City Foundation
I was commissioned to design this t-shirt for the Circle City Foundation's Light the Lamp Against Cancer event which depicts a hockey fan in a hot Indiana summer daydreaming about playing hockey in the wintertime.
It was a pleasure to work with an organization that does so many great things in their fight against cancer. I had a lot of fun putting a little spin on my beach graphics, by illustrating a lake beach in the mountains. This design was set up for full-color, so I could really go nuts.
Fantastic! I'm really happy with how this has turned out. You really captured what I was going for!
-Mark Barnhart
Grass Roots Hipster Bear T-Shirt Illustration
I was hired by a fabric pot manufacturer for growing plants to create a t-shirt for their conventions featuring this hipster bear character we came up with, holding one of their fabric pots. They wanted something that displayed their product in a way that people would want to wear, even if they weren't familiar with the product. This was printed with direct-to-garment full-color printing. They were kind enough to send me a shirt, and it turned out great!
Old Pirate Anchor and Nautical Wheel T-shirt
High Tide Printing
T-Shirt design I created for a new brand called High Tide Printing, featuring an old nautical wheel, pirate skeletons, tentacles, and lots and lots of barnacles.
The design was set up for silk-screening with lots of and lots of colors.
Steampunk Character Concepts 03
Bogardpress
Concept art characters I created for a book publisher, taking characters we had already created, and outfitting them for exploring the undersea depths! The character designs will be used to illustrate their educational materials and lessons. Each year the team uses a different theme and concept to tie their lessons together. I really enjoyed the whole process, from developing the characters in sketches, to coloring and rendering the final versions. I tried to add a bit of style into the characters to keep them from becoming generic. I especially enjoyed creating the robot character.
Everyone was very happy with what you have done. Very impressed.
-Shawn Blase
Hot Rod Power Tour 2017 T-Shirt Illustration
Custom T-Shirt illustration I created for the Hot Rod Power Tour Kansas City 2017.
Always a fun challenge to draw cars, which can be very hard to get right. I had to us a lot of reference photos for this one to get the details of the models just right (or close enough anyway).
Dive Bar T-Shirt Template
T-shirt illustration I created for Great Lakes Graphics featuring a dive bar home to shady looking sharks, slutty mermaids, and deep-sea diving gorillas.
The design is black and white on the shirt until the wearer goes out into the sun, and the colors are revealed!
Wouldn't change a thing, looks great!
-Matt Whelpton
Owner, Great Lakes
Beach Shrimp Festival T-shirt Design
Model Tees
Fun limited color silkscreen t-shirt I created for a Shrimp Gumbo festival in Alabama featuring a handsome shrimp serenading a beautiful shrimp and the rest of the beach-goers.
The design was a fun challenge because the client liked my colorful full-color beach designs, and wanted something similar. But we could only use a limited silk-screen palette. I used halftones to cheat on some colors. We chose to draw the scene at night to make it unique to the previous year's designs.
Military Brats
This was a fun illustration I created for a client for their apparel brand that caters to military families. The design, Military Brats, depicts the children of Navy, Marines, Army, and Airforce soldiers emerging from a moving box on a base, coping with the uncertain life of constant upheaval from base to base.
It was a fun challenge to depict each child in a way that captures the aspects of each particular branch of the military.
Halloween At The Beach
Personal Artwork
I created this series of four halloween illustrations of classic movie monsters vacationing at the beach for a Halloween festival I attended. I drew a witch surfing a wave on her broomstick, a kid building a sandcastle on top of a buried zombie, a vampire getting a moon-tan, and a mummy being unravelled by a seagull exposing a little mummy butt. I tried to keep the theme and layout from piece to piece consistent, while using a Fall Halloween color scheme.
You can purchase signed prints of the artwork here:
https://www.flylanddesigns.com/shop/
These images are available for licensing at https://www.flylanddesigns.com/licensing/
Gorilla Grocery Shopping T-Shirt
American Food Avenue
Here's a t-shirt I illustrated for a grocery store chain in Switzerland that specializes in American food, featuring whimsical animal characters coming out of the store loaded with great American trashy foods.
The great Steve Nazar (T&C Surf) had designed their characters previously, so it was a lot of fun to pick up where he left off and create some new characters inspired by that style.