Foxonaut Studio: Character Branding
In 2020-21, I've been putting the pieces together for my art store/concept: Foxonaut Studio. Art is tailored around the space adventures of Astra, intrepid artist from Foxonaut Intergalactic Group.
Creating a character and world has been paramount to getting started. As you can see from the header image, I'm purposefully leaning into retro futurism like you'd see from The Jetsons or Disneyland's Futureland. For me, it's a great avenue for storytelling within my art style.
Here's a look at the creation of Astra:
Foxy Origins
Early on when planning my store, I knew I wanted to have a character mascot. And if I was going that route, that mascot was going to be a fox. After all, I spent a good amount of my preschool days wanting to become a fox until I realized that was a biological impossibility (alas).
I went through a few designs before starting to gravitate toward hats, which many vintage mascots wore. I did draw one fox with a retro space helmet (i.e. - a circle around his head) ... and after searching for the right shop domain name for a few weeks, my friend suggested Foxonaut. From there, the spacey iterations began.
Vector Work
The primary character design work was done in Procreate on iPad Pro with RetroSupply Co's brush sets, but I brought the design into Adobe Illustrator to make a vector version of the character design. It is now the profile image used in the Foxonaut storefronts and social media accounts.
Get ready for more Foxonaut art in the future as her retro space adventures begin.