My short story, Goodbyes, follows a young girl named Avery who has grown up in Seattle for almost her whole life. She always struggled with being extremely shy from a young age but she knew she could always count on her parents, her dog, and the floral shop that they owned. The store was a second home to Avery where she discovered her love for science, which made leaving for college all the more difficult. It's the place where she grew up and became the person she is today. Even though this chapter of her life was so difficult to move on from, she knew that this new part of her life would lead to great things. And so, Avery left Seattle to study Environmental Science at Bowdoin College, on the other side of the country, but she knew in her heart that Seattle is her forever home.
Using Adobe Illustrator, I used reference images of five different animals all based on traits relating to the main character of my short story, Avery. I used the limbs of an axolotl since they are shy creatures, a lizard tail as they're optimistic reptiles, the head of a red panda to show curiosity, the wings of a butterfly to express creativity, and the body of a lovebird to communicate Avery's loving quality. I used a color palette ranging from coral to blue as they represent all of Avery's traits in the best way possible. When drawing my character, I used different techniques such as feathering as well as going in individually to perfect the look of the feathers covering the body. When it came to the background, I used a monochromatic color palette of green since it contrasted nicely with the colors of the animal and matched the floral shop theme quite perfectly. When making the animal, I struggled with the look of the butterfly wings. I ended up lowering the opacity to make it appear somewhat transparent which made them look nice and delicate against the background. With over 60 layers, I am very proud of my end product and if I had time I would add more detail to the background.
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