RED and BLU Balloonicorn

I posted this on my blog years ago I loved experimenting with Illustrator when I started work. Here's the old description from my blog:

So here’s Balloonicorn riding a floaty ring. You know, Balloonicorn from Pyroland! Apparently he became a bath/pool toy out of my idiotic whim, since he’s inflatable. Get it? I want to think of my interpretation as some kind of squeaky toy, like a rubber ducky, or maybe it’s long a hot day and my subconscious is telling me to take bath before I get a heatstroke.

Truth be told, it’s actually a practice drawing that got super fun and I went on to finish it. The experimental shading method worked rather well, I mean can anyone tell it’s made with a vector based drawing software?