Dragon for Dragon

My cousin, Rosa wanted me to do a pair of sneakers for her son, Ryu.  Immediately, I thought about Street Fighter, but this was not the direction that would make any sense to this 7 month old later in life :) "Ryu" in Japanese means "dragon" so that was the appropriate theme for these customs.  Ryu turns 1 in October, so these are an early birthday present for the little guy.  

Rosa let me have free range on the kind of dragons and the colors.  She just asked that I have his name and birthdate on there.  On an infant shoe, there isn't a ton of room but I was able to utilize the space pretty well.  At least "Ryu" is only 3 letters! Haha!  As I was brainstorming and sketching ideas, I started drawing letters that looked like dragons.  I thought they came out playful and cute.  On the inside, I have another dragon in a "field" of fire with a little smoke ring puff coming out of its nose.  On the other sneaker, I have a happy flying dragon with some more flames and a few trees to set the scene.  Then inside has Ryu's birthdate "10/31/11" with a meaner dragon dividing the month-date-year with it's teeth.  To add more detail, I drew dragon teeth on one toe, and a curled dragon tail with "RYU" on the other toe.  Also, on the back heel strip, I repeated Ryu's name and his birthdate.

These little size 6 infant Stan Smith sneakers came out fun and playful.  Infant sizes are always a fun challenge.  Ryu isn't walking yet, but has started crawling.  It'll be a while until he can fit in these, but soon enough he'll be running around in them :)  I mailed these off the Las Vegas today, so I'm excited to see how Rosa likes them and when Ryu eventually wears them!