Down in Fraggle Rock Pt. 1

I loved Fraggle Rock as a kid, though I don't know if I really watched very much of it. I do remember my mom telling my brother and I that there was a new kids show coming on, and we could stay up to watch it. Strange as it seems, it was originally an HBO show, on at 8pm, which was our bedtime. I believe it was shown on Sunday nights, so perhaps Jim Henson was hoping to recreate the success of Disney's long standing Sunday night program, something in prime time for the whole family. I don't remember watching more than a handful of Fraggle Rock episodes in this time slot, but somehow, through merchandise, books, and reruns, the world of Fraggle Rock became pretty familiar. Though my memories of it were pretty vague, I do remember that the thing I liked most was the atmosphere of the setting. The fraggles lived in these endless caves, all colorfully lit (like the caves in Star Trek, where was all the light coming from?!), which always looked cozy and warm. I was never claustrophobic- far from it! I used to love to take a coloring book into the deep closet that was under my grandparents staircase and sit and color behind the coats, for hours, with a flashlight as my only illumination. So living in a cave seemed like great fun to me. Anyway, thankfully we now have Fraggle Rock on DVD, and I often put it on to listen ot in the background while I paint. I took a break from a larger project today and just started doodling in Photoshop, and I decided I'd doodle some Fraggles. They all have things in common, but there's an endless variety of colors and features that can be mixed and matched, so I thought it would be a fun thing to doodle. My plan was to just draw a pile of them, just fill up the page. And since I'm still kind of figuring out how I prefer to do this digital painting thing I think what I'll do is post it in stages, as each character comes along. Here's what I've got so far:

First off, this isn't supposed to be any one Fraggle, in fact, I would like to have them all be new Fraggles, not ones from the show, though my daughter says this one is Wembely. But it's not- Wembely has green body fur and overall is more yellow green than this guy. Anyway, I really stumbled over how to do this, not quite knowing how refined I wanted this painting to be, so he's not as pretty as some of the others might be. Hopefully I will remember to save some more preliminary progress shots along the way so you can see how each one evolves. This guy's looking at another Fraggle, who's not there yet, but hopefully will be tomorrow. See you then!