Finding My Style in Illustrator

I admit to feeling frustrated lately with finding my style in Illustrator.  It's a flat vector based computer program and sometimes I just don't like that look.  My artwork is usually created with lots of layers of paint and paper.  I decided to play around and see what I could come up with.  I went with my favorite subject matter and here is what I created.

These are the icons I started with. I tried some texture with my brush strokes to give the foxes depth.

I played around with the background to add more interest.

Then I tried out some patterns.

Then I played with textures I made with a very cool app from Adobe called Adobe Shape as well as the watercolor brush and I came up with this fox.

I love how he turned out.  He's much closer to my painting style and I think the texture I created is nice.  It's still a work in progress but I know I'm headed in the right direction.

Thanks for stopping by!