Our last MATS Bootcamp assignment was an editorial illustration of an article entitled, How to Succeed at Being a Digital Nomad, by Tanya Mohn in Forbes Magazine.
After reading the article, I mulled over it for several days. I had the luxury of doing this because it wasn't a real editorial assignment! They are often completed from concept to finish over a couple of days or less.
I knew I wanted to include the theme of travel and technology. We were required to have a person in the piece, and I wanted to also do an animal.
This is my original sketch:
I loved the idea of a tree house on a buffalo's back. Then I made the unfortunate, but timely realization that the assignment brief stated that the piece was to be in HORIZONTAL orientation! Oops. Major fail on an Illustration 101 rule: READ THE BRIEF. So I had to scrap that and start over. The tree house wouldn't fit, but I kept the buffalo and simplified everything else. I liked the buffalo for the "Out West" pioneering concept, as well as the idea of buffalo "roaming free". Here is the second rough sketch:
At this point, I didn't have much time to finish the complete illustration! I drew the circuitry with a fine Micron pen and scanned in and vectored. And then I made the rest of the illustration digitally.
My finished piece -- I decided to go for a monochromatic palette, and I'm in love with the 2015 color of the year, Marsala! :) I also think this is a stronger piece than my originally intended vertical version!