Ninja Slice of Life

Here is an assignment from Spring. I was granted this amusing prompt: Ninjas in the classical Winnie the Pooh pen and ink style. This was modified to include "daily life". From there, I followed a pretty standardized development process.

After sketching various specific Japanese locations, I did a quick painting of the "city" which would include them. The castle would anchor all of them as a background element.. in theory.  I chose the daytime setting.  Ninjas sneaking around under cover of night would be too predictable - no, my ninjas will be doing their laundry and taking their morning jogs under light of day!

Next was character development. Two characters: either a protagonist/antagonist pair, or hero/sidekick. I determined to create a ninja family, with an awkward Dad (guilty of all the tropes; bad jokes, sweat pants, fishing, newspapers, etc) and a responsible daughter type.

Thumbnailing compositions!  Once summer classes end, I will likely complete all of these except #2.

#3 was taken to finish first:

I'm bothered by many things, mostly the empty space (castle didn't make it in time), but it has some charming qualities I hope.