A cougar stretched out on a mossy mixing desk in an orange autumn forest, ravens at the faders and on a rack unit, two raccoons watching from a window frame and a wolf asleep in the corner
Work

Twelve months inside the Creature world.

Client

Self-published

Sector

Art calendar, self-published

Year

October to December 2025

Scope

Illustration, character design, print production

The problem

Deep in the forests of Vancouver Island, an old music studio sits half-swallowed by moss, rain, and roots. Wolves, deer, ravens, and red squirrels move through broken structures and engage forgotten gear. Each month of the Creature Calendar is a snapshot from that world — a bridge between hip hop, wildlife, and the Pacific Northwest forests that raised LiftedPro.

The approach

Twelve months, each built around one Vancouver Island animal running the studio — an owl on a speaker cab, a cougar draped over a mixer — with smaller creatures hidden throughout the scene so there's something new to find every time you look. Every animal is native to the Island, and every one of them belongs to the same studio, working in harmony.

The system

The printed Creature Calendar standing open, showing a winter forest scene above the month grid
The 2026 Creature Calendar being turned page by page, each month showing a different scene from the forest studio
The printed object. 28 pages, saddle-stitched, CMYK proofed.
Two raccoons working a drum pad in the snow inside a roofless, moss-covered forest studio, with a great horned owl perched on a mixing console, a raven at left and a grey wolf sitting beside studio monitors
January. Winter Studio Bass.
A buck with tall antlers standing in the doorway of the ruined forest studio at night in the rain, a raven with wings spread on the mixing desk and a mouse on the wet floor, lit only by the red and amber glow of the consoles
February. Midnight Machines.
A bear cub walking through a shallow stream in heavy rain between a sampler and a glowing reel-to-reel tape machine, with a great blue heron perched on a speaker cabinet under dripping old-growth timber
April. A Grizzly Born on the Isle.
A raven perched on a sampler set on an old mossy stump in a sunlit forest clearing, two more ravens in flight, an otter curled asleep among the driftwood, and a sandpiper and a crab in the foreground
June. Sun of the Beach. Ravens hold court over a sampler on an old stump while an otter sleeps in the sun.
A cougar sprawled across a moss-covered mixing console in a green summer forest studio, two raccoons on the microphone stands, a blacktail deer looking in through the window frame, a pileated woodpecker on the sill and a raven at a sampler
August. Green Room Lyricals. A cougar sprawls across a moss-covered mixing desk while two raccoons take the mics.
A black bear lying across a large mixing console in golden autumn light with its paws on the faders, two Steller's jays on a synthesiser keyboard, a raven on a speaker cabinet and a ribbon microphone hanging at left
September. Autumn Rhythms.
A cougar stretched out on a mossy mixing desk in an orange autumn forest, ravens at the faders and on a rack unit, two raccoons watching from a window frame and a wolf asleep in the corner
October. Cat in Fire Attire.
Two wolves beside a stack of snow-covered vintage synthesisers in a moonlit winter forest, with ravens on a reel-to-reel machine and an owl perched on a speaker cabinet
December. Winter's Wolf Eve.

The process

  1. Sketch

    Every character started as a pencil sketch, on paper or tablet, working out pose and attitude by hand before any tool touched it.

  2. Generate

    Sketches went into Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT/DALL·E and Google Imagen to throw off a high volume of raw material to pull from, not to hand back a finished image.

  3. Composite

    The generated material got picked apart. I kept what worked and photo-bashed the pieces together in Photoshop, building the final character out of parts, not accepting any single generation whole.

  4. Color

    Coloring was generated separately, then graded and applied into the composite by hand.

  5. Texture

    Realistic textures were generated as reference, sampled into custom Photoshop brushes, and hand-painted onto each piece with a stylus.

  6. Layout

    The full 28-page calendar was laid out in InDesign — grid, typography, date system — built to hold up once it hit CMYK.

  7. Timeline

    Sketching started in late October, and the first test prints went out in mid-December. Built in fifteen-minute to one-hour windows most nights, after a nine-hour sheet metal shift and time with my son.

the

Creature Calendar

Process · Sketch to plate

Each month started as a drawing

October

Cougar on the mixer

My cougar face study was the direct reference for the October cougar: the brow, the eyes and the calm, heavy-lidded look.

July

Buck in the studio

The buck standing over moss-covered speakers set the composition and mood for July: wildlife moving in on abandoned gear.

February

Raven on the console

The raven perched on the mixing desk became the watcher in the February night scene.

Self-published retail calendar · Oct – Dec 2025

Art direction, sketches & Photoshop by Nigel Jordan

Sketch to plate: my cougar, buck and raven drawings next to the October, July and February plates they shaped.

the

Creature Calendar

Process · Finding the style

July, from first test to final plate

Style tests

Four of the July generations, guided by my sketch and theme, while the look was being set

Test 1

Test 2

Test 3

Test 4

Final plate

Animals in, by hand

On most plates the animals were generated separately from the setting. I masked each one, relit it, matched its colour and painted in shadows and edges in Photoshop so it sits in the scene. This was before Photoshop's AI Harmonize tool.

Animal elements

Mink

Steller's jays

Great horned owl

Self-published retail calendar · Oct – Dec 2025

Art direction, sketches & Photoshop by Nigel Jordan

Finding the style: four July style tests, the final plate, and animal elements matched into scenes by hand in Photoshop.

the

Creature Calendar

December

One plate, three settings

Print layout: plate, date grid and spine

In a cabin by lantern light

On the wall for the holidays

Self-published retail calendar · Oct – Dec 2025

Art direction, sketches & Photoshop by Nigel Jordan

December: the finished page, shown in two real-world settings.

Result

A 28-page saddle-stitched calendar taken the whole way through production. CMYK proofed, barcoded with a real UPC/EAN, and the date grid built to WCAG AA contrast so it still reads on a wall in bad light. Printed in a limited run of sixteen. None remain.

What I'd change

The idea came together too late in the year, and I used the short runway I had left to test whether I could get a calendar out before Christmas at all. What I'd do differently: start earlier, run preorder ads well ahead of the season, and have every calendar already shipped to customers by November instead of still testing prints in December.

Need a launch cut or a sound to go with it? That gets built here too. The sound

Next project

Identity for a cross-genre festival in the BC interior, built around a cast of animals.

Read the case study