Technique my brother taught me (draw and trace)

I had a rough time figuring out how I would render a giraffe.  I'm sure it's possible, but I wanted to get my results done fast.  My client already paid, and I have 2 other projects that need attention.

So I started with a pencil sketch.  It's pretty simple and fits with how I have been presenting ideas on quirky.com.   The title on top and the meat of the idea filling most of the page.

From there, I took a picture of this with my iPhone and used inkscape to trace the outlines and color in the rest.  

I figure I will do more animals based on the quirky communities recommendations and requests, so this is the main image I used for the idea submission.