Bee Design

Here's a funny thing! It appears one of my designs I did for Ashlea at Bunnycup Embroidery has been subject to copyright infringement. I am not aware of the company who have cheekily used the design, but I thought I would share the sketches of the bee illustration  in question so I can explain what makes the bee our own. 

I have a the original file from 30 May 2008. I work digitally, so I originally sketched freehand with a wacom tablet ( a digital pen to non-graphic designers, so the rough sketch goes straight on to the screen). 

The lines were naturally a bit wobbly, so I traced over the sketch in Illustrator (I've attached a screen shot so you can see the work in progress with all the vector lines from the original file).

If you type 'cute bee illustration' into google or bing, you do get a lot of clipart in this similar simple style, but things that make it my own are the thicknesses in the outline, the trail flight line path that loops then swoops under the bee, the wings are identical, they are mirrored... and the eye size and position on the head identifies the bee as being the same one I drew.