For our final assignment we needed to show all that we have learned. We had free range on how we wanted to depict the story. Realistically, comically, etc. Our professor had chosen three editorial articles that we could create an illustration for. The one I decided to do is Apple Taking on the Government. It goes into detail about how the Government needs access to the phone of a bomber. Apple decides not to create that software for the security and safety of all Apple users. I really thought of George Orwell’s 1984 when reading this so I wanted to incorporate that into my design. It started with just having the eye.
Then I took a break and sketched random things for a different article because I was not a fan of where I was at with the Apple article. Well, 8 days later I sat down again and said: “You’re going to do this apple one. You’re going to do it right now.” And the sketching and reference imaging began. I searched for stock photos of a guy in a suit but they weren’t what I was searching for right away.
I wasn’t particularly thrilled with what I found. They were helpful but not exactly what I was looking for. So after asking my two coworkers if they were in suits (they weren’t) I settled for pictures of myself to get something akin to what I wanted.
Drawing from this angle has been difficult let me tell you. I wanted to keep the Idea of the Big Brother Eye in the Illustration so I thought “LET’S PUT IT ON THE SHOE!” My fellow students have suggested adding emotions so I hope this conveys something:
Reference:
“I think your sketch is amazing! you just need to transfer it to illustrator and you are done! I’m kind of jealous because I can’t draw for anything. Anyways, I think I love how the shoe comes out off the frame. So far it looks great. Concept wise I also think it works very well with what the article is about. Great job.”
“Your concept is really great. And this sketch is beautiful. I can’t wait to see your illustration. One thing — in the sketch, I can’t really tell that the apple is an apple. I’d look at showing a little more of the apple.”
“THIS IS AWESOME!!! I hope you can get the eye to look the same in Illustrator. The concept is great the only thing is the apple logo gets lost a bit so maybe add a glow or something to make it pop out more!”
“Love this! I think this is a really cool sketch with the “all seeing eye.” I’m excited to see this when it is all finished!”
“I love the way you incorporated the eye, I can’t wait to see it in illustrator! I love how the all knowing big brother eye is squishing down. SO COOL!”
And illustration has begun! I am so happy to hear that my classmates are excited to see my work. It makes me eager to complete it. I am also taking their thoughts and opinions to heart. I will be moving the apple logo up so that it is more visible. I might just do a regular apple. I haven’t decided yet. It’s been interesting trying to convert it from sketch to vector. It’s a long process but it’s a good one. I love the learning!
I was having such a rough go with creating the eye for this assignment that I jumped onto behance and watched an incredibly helpful tutorial on creating eyes. Click here to view it. I promise it’ll help if you’re stumped like I was.
This angle though. Talk about no sleep and anal attention to detail.
“Wow very well done! I did not end up reading this article, but this illustration makes me want to, so I’d say great job! It’s very intriguing and is almost provoking me to want to know the story behind it. “
I will be redoing the knee so that it has a proper vanishing point and then picking a final color scheme.
Here is where I am at so far! School has been hectic but I finally have some down time to work on this awesome project again.
I finally chose my color scheme. I really like it and I believe that it will help me accomplish a perfect visual hierarchy.
Can I shamelessly say that I love the shoe I created?
Now that I have the shoe where I want it, I will start on the leg. It was so nice to have an in class work day. My professors recommendations were beyond helpful and so appreciated.
This has been really fun. I am just about done with the outline of the legs. Then I will move on to coloring them and adding highlights. I will then move to the jacket, shirt, tie and arms. I might to part of the agents neck as well as a face. Then I will ad a border and texture!
I am becoming obsessed.
So I recently go a critique that said the colors that I was using were too happy. They suggested making the yellow a more sickly yellow than the brighter yellow. I then played with red, orange, blue and greenish. I really wanted the high contrast and I wasn’t very pleased with where it was going. Below are the screenshots of my progress.
The struggle for this is so real for this project. The more I stare at my piece, the more I hate it. I’m leaning towards black, white, gray and red. So that the evil eye really pops.
So I am not doing the apple logo in the image itself. I have words associated with Apple in the background as well.
And viola! I say I’m done.
Allison Houtz 