My illustration is based on my Short Story, The Science Fair Project. The story is about a young boy named Milo. Milo lives with his father and they own a small auto-shop. When Milo competes in a Science Fair, Milo and his father learn to work together. The scene I chose to illustrate is when Milo enters the science fair classroom and is overwhelmed by all the projects. Milo is represented as a mixed animal and the characteristics of those animals represent him. I chose a baby elephant to represent Milo’s clumsy nature, a squirrel to represent Milo’s timidness, a turtle to represent how shy he is, a koala to represent his non-threatening attitude and lastly a pug to show Milo’s loyalty.
To construct this image, I first brainstormed possible animals that have the same characteristics and traits that my character has. I then found pictures of my animals and compiled them in Adobe Photoshop. Using blend mode options I constructed a rough idea how my creature could look like. I used the same process to construct a rough idea of my background. Using these outlines I began tracing and forming shapes in Adobe Illustrator. I started with the background. I learned about one point, two point and three point perspectives. My setting was located in a classroom, so I chose one point perspective. After I finished the background I began working on the animal. I found it particularly hard to recreate the textures of my animals. Elephants have several wrinkles in their skin and creating the fur on the tail of the squirrel and the fur from the koala was a challenge. After I finished the creature, I placed it inside my background and adjusted sizes until I thought it was proportionate. Lastly I desaturated the background to emphasize my creature and finish my piece.
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