[wip] Bee GIFs and rough idea of icons/theme

I'm going to make a theme and animated stickers based on a drawing of Bee I did a while ago.

I need to start preparing diligently now to complete it by spring ✨

Here's the rough idea for the icon pack/theme and the process of creating the GIF to add to the iMessage sticker pack!

[wip] Bees 1 / [wip] Bees 2 /[wip] Bees 3

When I was drawing Bee, I saw a woolcarder bee doing wool gathering, and I thought it was so cute that I had to animate it.

It's 6 frames, but I wanted to make it feel a bit busier, so I changed it to 4 frames 👇

I also added text!

It's a Illustrated Woolcarder Bee.

I separated the layers of the main illustration I had drawn. I kept the parts that could be saved, like the face and chest, and redrawn the stomach, legs, antennae, and wings.

In reality, the antennae do not move this flexibly, but this is an animated expression.

It's. Mexican Orchid Bee. I added wing flapping.

I added a falling glitter powder effect, but I thought it was too fast, so I adjusted the speed a bit.

A new song from one of my favorite artists came out a while ago, and I just listened to it 😚 I love this song so much, I've been swaying to the beat all day long 🎶 So I captured this feeling in this little bee. A bee into a happy rhythm.

Rhus fairy bee.

The male and female bees look a little different, and this one is a male!

If there's a happy bee, there must be a confused bee too.... 😎

Yellow-faced-Bumblebee.

I drew this bee's face as a bit surprised, but I changed it to a more shocked expression.

I'm slowly updating Giphy. I'll also post a coupon post once the iMessage sticker app update is complete!

Meanwhile, an icon pack is also in progress.

The main image featured rainbow colors - white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, black, and more.

However, I plan to use a more restrained palette for the theme.

This is the initial color concept. It may change as I continue working.

It might be better to create it using only yellow, orange, and brown.

It'll be more comfortable on the eyes and create a calming feeling.

🤔......

But on the other hand, when it comes to content about bees, people typically think of honey bees, and most of bee related contents are yellow and brown. So maybe I do something a little different. Since many wild bees are still yellow and brown, I'll keep those as the main colors and add green and blue. And more than anything, honestly, green and blue bees are just so pretty!

The Teddy Bear bee and the Blue Carpenter bee became the representative models.

I'll also be adding sweat bees and leafcutter bees. I'll plan to draw at least four and at most ten species as icons. I could draw more, but I also need to make sure the icons are consistent.

Designing the icon... For some reason, this time it was really hard.

The face, especially the shape of the eyes, just didn't quite click with me.

I spent two whole days in agony, lol.

This is an image I tested on mobile.

I tried changing the eye shape and proportions.

But none of them really appealed to me 🤯

I decided to throw them all away and start over.

It's just a simple sketch, but for some reason it took me hours to draw and erase over and over again 😂 I definitely started this sketch after dinner, and it's 3am now. Below is the completed one.

Finally, I like this.... 😂

Now, based on this, I'm going to draw about 40 more 🎶

Hope you like it too 🐝💕