My illustration is based on my narrative project for English. "The Florist's Return to Nature" is a flash fiction about an introspective florist named Samantha. She works in a funeral home, a job that's incapable of providing for her emotionally, until her self- and boss-loathing behavior results in unemployment and she's freed. The "background" features a cemetery, in the spirit of funerals. The creature I created lurks behind the headstones, haunting them as Samantha haunts the funeral home.
To create my creature in Adobe Illustrator, I worked from the head backwards, finally ending at the tail and wings. At first I struggled to make progress because I was so focused on the details, but once I decided to outline the basic shapes, it became easier to manage my time. Our class was instructed to create a creature from a variety of animals that share characteristics with our narrative's main character. My Squirmitbee includes the features of a squirrel, hermit crab, and bee, which have been combined to form the name, as well as a crow and iguana. These are all mellow, cunning creatures, to reflect my character's melancholy nature. I particularly enjoyed meshing the iguana pattern and underbelly with the bee body. For the background, I created each headstone individually using two-point perspective, which I found in most images of cemeteries. My personal favorite headstone is the second of the second row because finding and displaying the colors of the diagonal faces was satisfying. I wanted a slightly spooky, yet romantic look for the setting, so there's plenty of fog and gradients to placate the harsher tones of forest green and deep purple.
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