Animal Project Pt.2: Illustration
objective: You will create a two-dimensional translation of your animal form and its habitat, in color, and on paper. This will integrate original text and imagery to tell a story to the viewer and communicate a message about your animal’s habitat and why it is endangered.
Initial Research:
I started out by looking at photos of orcas to get a better sense of its habitat and to see what position I wanted to draw the orca in for my illustration. I found that since orcas generally tend to stay pretty close to the surface, especially compared to other types of whales, there isn’t much plant life around them like what you would see at the bottom of the ocean.
Since the overfishing of chinook salmon was the reason for orcas being endangered, I thought it would be helpful to include a fishing boat in the distance, on the surface of the water. I got advice from a TA to look up the boat from Finding Nemo as a reference picture.
Iteration 1:
For my first iteration I decided to include the boat on the surface of the water (like the one in the reference picture) as well as a main whale in the foreground and another one in the background.
Since orcas swim relatively close to the surface of the ocean, there aren’t many ways for me to show depth in the water since I can’t include the ocean floor or any plants or corals that would indicate that the orcas are underwater. I decided to include sun rays along the surface of the water and ripples to create this effect. For my first iteration I included ripples along the boat and on the top of the piece with lighter and brighter colors. I decided to a straight on view of the two orcas.
I also decided to experiment with the colors and I eventually got some feedback that my colors were a little bright and too abstract and that the yellow and blue combination was the best as it was the most realistic.
Iteration 2:
After having my critique session with Daphne and other classmates in class I figured out that the composition lacked some depth and that the pole sticking out from the boat was a little confusing. I also need to add some more details on the orcas to make them more realistic and less sketch like.
Things I need to work on:
- get rid of hyphens
- smooth out lines on the orcas
- add more details to the orcas and make the features sharper
- make the shadows and highlights more distinct
- add more depth in composition with the color usage and positioning of the orcas
Iteration 2:
For my second iteration I decided to experiment a bit with the composition as I got more comfortable with the pen tool and using Illustrator.
Iteration 3:
Final Iteration:
For the final iteration I decided that I needed to smooth out some vectors,
