Inkredible: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Robyn Watson (2018)

My flash fiction is about a shy, yet innovative and creative Uber driver, Jonathan, who dreams about exploring new worlds and people through writing. Because he meets so many individuals through his occupation, he frequently enjoys people watching to further his observations and build characters for his story. As he drives, he dreams up a character who he someday would like to write and publish a book about.

At the start of this project, I had to decide which animals I thought best represented Jonathan's personality traits. After brainstorming and loose sketching, I chose to take a picture of an owl and penguin from the internet, proceeding to trace them or use them for reference in Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to keep his character simple, because he is a very simplistic person, so I only used two animals. The owl head represents his intellectual side while the penguin body represents his curious and adventurous side. I completed Jonathan in his outfit using the paintbrush tool before moving on to the setting, a street with shops and the car that he drives, using the pen tool. I used one point linear perspective for the buildings and the sidewalk to create depth. I encountered some difficulties while deciding what to include in the background to tell the story, but I ended up deciding that the bookstore was a necessary part of the plot and that the sweet shop added a nice touch to the setting as well. Of course, his car is important because he drives it for most of the day, and he is carrying his sketchbook in his wingtip, because that is where he records all of his observations. If I were to redo this project, I would include a sky and continue the sidewalks and roads to help the piece feel more unified.