Wild! - Life

Welcome to another of my Illustration Friday blogs! This week the word is Wild! As I continue to illustrate annual report covers, I wondered which company was focused on the wild. Without much thought, the National Geographic came to mind. This company is known for its beautiful images and videos on wildlife. I thought to myself if they had an annual report it should have an awesome cover. Upon continuing my research, I found that they do indeed produce these reports. An example is showed below of the 2011 Report.




So it was now time for me to use my skills to express the word Wild. Here are a few ideas I had demonstrated through simple sketches called thumbnails.

And we have a winner! What can be more wild than the killer whale (top left thumbnail).

Step 1
National Geographic is known for its yellow border. So I decided to start there to give myself a frame and colour scheme to work with.


Step 2
I then added the background element, water that this killer whale would be coming through. This like all my Illustration Friday work is done in Photoshop CS5 using brushes.


Step 3
Blocking the area. In this step, I started to blocked the area for the whale, then added more water to see how the effect of water splashing would work.


Step 4
I continued with blocking with black the shape of the whale. Although the shape seemed simple, it took a lot of care to obtain the shape I desired.


Step 5
Adding Contrast. As you follow my blogpost. you would realize that the steps involved in painting in Photoshop may be the same. For this while it was a simple black and white and a few shades of grey contrasts.


Step 6
The Splash effect. To complete the splash effect. more water was brushed in using a lower opacity. A special brush was chosen for this effect.


The Final - WILD

A making the image a smart layer, a filter was added to the illustration to create a water effect. The yellow border was redone. Text was added for the final touch.


As I completed this illustration I thought, killer whale look a bit cute to be called killer whales. However, these mammals are indeed wild creates of the deep deep blue sea.

Free the Chicken and her Eggs!

Eat noting that has a mother, vegans say. In the western world today where people are becoming more health conscious fast food restaurants like Kentucky Fried Chicken is trying to offer vegetarians and vegan options. Of course, if chickens could talk, they would be happy! This is week I will illustrate another annual report cover on KFC using the Illustration Friday word of the week - Egg. French toast anyone?

I came across quite this funny image below that inspired me to keep this annual report cover fun. I thought it would be quite interesting if we freed the chicken and save their eggs!and as I vegetarian myself, and potential vegan I would support this cause.



Here are a few thumbnails that I thought would represent the freedom of the egg and his mother. Some of these concepts were interesting, however I decided to chose the bottom center thumbnail to create this illustration.


Step 1: Blocking. In this step, the background was filled in and the shape of the chicken flying through was painted in using a Photoshop CS5 brush. This step turn out pretty well and I was motivated to continue to see what my fling chicken would look like.


Step 2:
Adding feathers and features. I played with several brushes here to find the right brush to demonstrate the feathers. I then settled on one and it seems to work quite well. This brush was a custom prest brush.


Step 3:
Adding contrast usually brings your illustration to life. After covering the chicken with the lighter feathers, darker feathers and shadows brought this bird to life. I was very pleased with this stage. This may be named my favourite step in illustration. The details of the head and feet of the chicken was also illustrated.


Step 4:
The Egg. In this step, I simple drew the impossible – a chicken flying away with her egg! This is why I love being an illustrator was you are allowed to imagine!


Step 5:
Building were added to create the city feel. These buildings were painted in and embossed effected added.


The Final:
Welcome to the New, Kentucy Fried Tofu Co. Ltd.


Chickens are now set free! No longer will they be slaughter and eaten. Their replacement is a soy based product called Tofu. Imagine if that were to really happen...if we all went vegan. What a happier world this would be – for the chicken and her eggs.