Not Quite a Mo! (But it is a Freebie)

Our surrogate Nephew (brother of the recipient of the Bella and Bronte 'explosion') will be four years old this year and, as I'm making a real effort to have all my birthday cards ready to go, I thought I'd spend some time on his card, as I always find boys more difficult than girls - do you?  He has a pirate costume (which is now way too small) and loves to dress up in it - he even considered wearing it to our wedding! So I thought there could be nothing better to base my card on and I set off looking for a pirate digistamp.  Now, obviously, my first stop was Mo's Digital Pencil but, despite looking really hard with my fingers crossed, I couldn't find a pirate!  Imagine my panic!  I had a quick look around my favourite digi sites but I couldn't find a pirate of the type I had in mind.  So ... I drew one.  Well, actually, that's not necessarily absolutely true.  I mean, the true bit is that the pen was in my hand when the pirate appeared on the paper but he wasn't drawn from scratch - I don't draw well enough for that.  This is how I did it.

On the internet I found a photograph of a little boy in a pirate suit that was just what I had imagined.  So I printed him out, full A4 size so that he was nice and big, and then I took a black pen and drew around all the salient features I wanted to include in my drawing, making sure to put down the odd fold in the cloth, etc., so that there was some detail.  I then taped some tracing paper over the outlined image and, with a very fine nibbed pen, I went over all the black lines, giving me an outline drawing on the tracing paper.  I then scanned this in (making sure to put a piece of white paper behind the tracing paper, just so that the image didn't 'grey' on me) and I ended up with my little pirate boy, almost exactly as I'd pictured him.  He doesn't have the gorgeous plumptiousness and animation of Mo's beautiful images but he does the trick.  I've posted him below - if you want him, please feel free to have him.  Just click on him to enlarge and then right click to save (you know the drill!).

This is the card I ended up with:

I'm really quite pleased with it and I just know that our little man will be thrilled with his pirate.  Here's the image - don't forget to enlarge it before you save it.

This isn't the original card I made with this coloured image.  Originally, I'd used a quite dark set of papers (which had been the ones in my head when I first thought of the card), but it really didn't work for a four-year old - even OH pointed it out, which is unusual.  I left the original card overnight and then looked at it with fresh eyes in the morning and, sure enough, it wasn't right.  So, at 6.30 a.m., I took the card apart and re-did it, using these lovely bright Cosmo Cricket papers.  It works much better.

So, enjoy colouring my little pirate, if he's of use to you.  Maybe you could leave a comment linking to your creation - I'd love to see what you do with him.

Happy crafting

Px