In my flash fiction story, a modern take on a love story, the two main characters Will, and Abigail, two normal highschoolers, go to school one day when the teacher announces that a deadly virus has gotten out of hand, the school has to shut down and the two contemplate if they will be able to see each other again. Their love story takes on, as they exchange emails and turn to each other because their families are all either leaving or dying right in front of them. At the end of the story, they end up meeting, against all city rules, but unfortunately don't make it to the next day. My narrative creature is based on this story, specifically in the airport scene when Abbie is saying goodbye to her parents because they must leave in order to survive. This scene specifically demonstrates where Abbie finally realizes the impacts this virus has on her as her family is taken away from her.
In my process of using Illustrator to make this creature, I first chose a dog because they're loving, a butterfly, because they're more shy and polite, a more independent animal in which I thought of an owl, a turtle, and a rattlesnake. Overall, the hardest parts of this creature were creating the skin with some kind of highlights, and reptile-inspired scales, and also creating the furry head, in which I created an ellipse and then created a new brush that would replicate the fur. With the background, I at first struggled with what small details and aspects I would incorporate into it. I wanted most of it to be the window where Abbie would watch her parents' flight take off, and then I incorporated other small details which made the scene look more realistic.
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