These strange bike-rack donkeys are part of a logo I did for a client/friend who makes bike panniers in Chile.   The name of the company is Bici-Burritos, which mean that these sturdy lil’ bags are donkeys for your bike!  He wanted the imagery, (and name for that matter), to evoke the “haul-everything” spirit of the tireless little burro. But these burros you don’t have to beat constantly to get them to do what you need them to do, like you do with most other ones.  They just obey.

You can see a few versions of the final illustration.  It was a little tricky to show the donkey from the back to accentuate the panniers, yet still make it read as a donkey, and for that end to get a head in there.  Oh, and make it straddling a bike like a rack.   But I think it came out well.  I did several pencil concept sketches using tracing paper, and did the final using scratchboard.

newly hatched mantispid larvae await the ride of their lives

..but I would love to be convinced that there is something even cooler.  The larvae of the order Neuroptera have the most incredible repertoire of ambush predation…someday I hope to illustrate the best of them!

This illustration was by far for me the most fascinating to research and I learned about this creature in so many ways, on so many disparate levels.  It could very well be the coolest creature on our planet today.

I feel bad for the spiders, but all life on the planet is preyed on from microbes or fungus on up at some point in their existence.

let me know what you think!  or if you know of other crazy relationships among insects and spiders!

tenderly feeding from within the protected eggsac