Riley Peters

she/they ✏️ Illustrator insta portfolio

[riley-peters011]

Happy Valentine’s Day! Sending lots of loaf 🍞🩷

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A little winter scene to start this year :-)

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With the tiniest gift inside 🎁 🔍

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Making plum jam 💟

I can't believe this was from the beginning of this year. It was my last college assignment, a quick one-day project. We each drew a random color from a hat and I got plum! This little plum jam-making duo was created over about an hour and a half of research and thumbnails, followed by four hours straight of drawing.

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sniffle szn

Don’t take for granted being able to breathe through your nose 🤧 It’s flu shot season, go book your vaccinations!

Also, I really liked the initial sketch for this one...

I tried to not lose the gesture in the final version.

[riley-peters011]

Salty Licorice🧂

I’m a little late to the news… In 2024, Salmiak made headlines after the identification of the gene causing this coat pattern in cats.

Originally found in feral cat populations in Finland, the previously named Finnish Roan coat was dubbed “Salmiak” after its resemblance to the Finnish salty licorice.

It is caused by a “95-kb deletion (a segment of DNA 95,000 base pairs long is missing) located downstream of the feline KIT gene” (the gene that determine white in a cat’s coat, except for albinism).

This white spotting locus is referred to as W, and is W^D for white dominate, w^S for white spotting, and Salmiak has been designated as w^sal.

In this mutation of the white spotting gene, it affects the migration of melanocytes (the cell that produce color) causing the hairs to transition from having pigment at the base to white at the tip creating the roan effect.

It is a recessive pattern that requires both parents to have the genetic mutation making it relatively rare. Most documented examples are cats with a black base coat with tuxedo-style white spotting, but it can also occur on red based coats as well!

I’m curious how many people care for the licorice flavor, I know it’s divisive. In the US we’re used to the red, cherry or strawberry flavored “licorice” that contains no licorice flavoring.

Links: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/age.13438

[riley-peters011]

Never Forget October 3rd

I think this one is a bit sad for what I post on Instagram, but the urge to create FMA fanart was strong 😅 Maybe I’ll post more fanart here because it seems to do well (see my lighter Alphonse and Cats work for a break from the angst)

[riley-peters011]

Alphonse and the cats 🐈

I realized I’d been holding back on drawing cats recently, and my portfolio definitely needed some more. This piece was a fun opportunity to experiment with metal textures and multiple elements in a composition. There is a subtle GIF with four frames of moving whiskers (edit: I've done something wrong, the gif is not working, see my website or instagram for the full effect).

I loved getting lost in the creative process. It took some time to figure out the cat stylization and level of detail, but I’m happy with the result. This project has sparked an interest in creating more fan art which is something I’ve shied away from.

Also, I love Alphonse Elric as a character. He is a child whose soul is bound to an empty set of armor, which makes him look intimidating. He is kind and has a love for animals, especially cats. Since he is young and has the innocence of youth taken away from him, through his interactions with animals we get to see him get to be young and playful again.

[riley-peters011]

From rubber stamps to vectors!

These stamps were created two semesters ago in Printmaking for Illustrators and they are now digitized! Though a bit wonky, they were designed to fit together in a grid, inspired by Tetris and an exploration of geometric animal forms - and I really wanted to stack some cats 🐈

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A book for kids who are nervous to leave their nest. 

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An ode to sharks 🦈

Healthy oceans need sharks, they help mitigate climate change. For example, tiger sharks help protect sea sediment by patrolling seagrass beds, limiting the activity of turtles and dugongs. Sea sediment is one of the most important carbon reservoirs on the planet. Sharks help prevent herbivores from over-agitating it! How cool!

This illustration was inspired by this episode of Short Wave: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/08/1198910363/shark-week-climate-oceans