The aim of this project was to create a lineup of characters to be used for a hypothetical "bus wrap" to be printed on a bus. I wanted to create characters for a hypothetical children's book or TV show, something fun and kind of silly. I came up with a ragtag group of pirates based on marine animals. 

Cap'n Coconut is the cheery leader of the pirate crew. They don't say much, but they're always smiling and that's got to mean something good, right? It was something of a challenge to figure out how Cap'n Coconut gets around, because manatees don't have legs and don't usually go on land. I played around with some ideas before settling on an old-fashioned wooden wheelchair.

Barnacles is the brusque, no-nonsense first mate of the pirate crew. I originally conceived of him as an elephant seal, which you can see an example of in the top right. The elephant seal was a little too silly-looking for the character, so I changed him to a leopard seal instead. Leopard seals are huge, vicious predators; perfect for a tough guy like Barnacles.

Cannonball is the crew's weapons specialist, living up to her name with a love of artillery and explosives of all kinds. I knew right from the start that she would be a sea otter, because I wanted her to be expressive and mischievous. I chose to represent her high energy with warm, bright colors - just like an explosion!

Ulysses is the crew's nervous navigator, rarely seen without his trusty spyglass in hand - er, flipper. I chose to depict him as a sea lion because of their ears; it provided me with an extra level of expression that I could use to really drive home his usual state of nervousness.

Karina is the ship's cook. She's easygoing and friendly, so I chose to use round, soft shapes in her design. Walruses are rather silly-looking, goofy animals, and I felt that fit the personality I had in mind for her.

When designing the final illustration, I knew that I wanted the bus to "become" their pirate ship, so that it would appear as if the characters were piloting it to adventures unknown. To drive this home, I wanted the portholes of the ship to match up with the windows of the bus. I used the bus template as a guide when sketching out the illustration, as seen below.

Below, the final illustration as it would appear on the bus. I moved the fish that Cannonball is reaching for in the sketch to the bus wheel, so that it would be more out of her reach (and also make use of the bus's construction to liven up the illustration. I also moved Barnacles to the back of the bus; it seems that he's had a bit of an accident with one of Karina's pies!