Here's some early thumbnails before finishing up this year's christmas card. I'll save you from all of the doodles/thumbnails that would require a bit of hand-waving and imagine-iffs. Thumbnails are a great way to imagine the stage and characters in your head and move the camera/lighting around before committing to that "final" composition.
My first ruling instinct was to cross the obvious: Santa delivering a SR71 Blackbird as a gift and checking off BBI/Gearbox with good measure. I found, that to be immediately readable and generally pleasant to different people from around the world it needed less ambiguous imagery. Pull back from St. Nick/his list/and flying/loading the plane and more about the instantly readable Blackbird silhouette with the giftgiving theme of the bow on the top.
I still feel there is a wonderful energy lost in the rendering of a final image that doesn't express the emotional conviction of a few descriptive strokes....I think that is a great part of why I usually like my first thumbnails better than the final result...
Happy Holidays
