Illustration: Pygmy Possum Christmas Cards

Some friends asked me to design some Christmas cards that were reminiscent of May Gibbs, and featured Australian wildlife. The design they decided on was a western pygmy possum among eucalyptus flowers and leaves:

For those wondering, May Gibbs was an Australian children's author/illustrator in the first half of the 20th century, who wrote and illustrated the classic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, as well as many other titles. 

I originally came up with three concepts, two featuring western pygmy possums, and one featuring a scarlet robin. 

Once the design had been decided upon, I inked it traditionally using sepia Faber-Castel PITT artist's pens and then added colour in Adobe Photoshop CS6:

We got them printed at Moo, who always do a lovely job. Since they allow multiple designs in one order, I made up a number of colourways, and three were decided upon – red flowers, pink flowers and yellow flowers. Here's a snap of the pink and yellow (with 'Merry Christmas' in 'leaf writing' in the top left). The satin finish of the printed cards works really well with the illustration, I think. =)