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Today I finished another quick illustration for an online contest. This particular contest was a challenge for three main reasons. 1) I only had three partial days to design, create final sketch and then fully render final version. 2) I intended to use my new one month trial adobe illustrator and my new wacomb tablet to create the final vector art. I’ve never made a vector based illustration before, and I had only used adobe illustrator a couple of times to lay in some text on images, and I’ve only drawn with the wacomb tablet twice before. 3) The contest rules only allow for six colors including black and white and tints and tones of colors. I have never worked under color restrictions before and definitely not while working with a new medium. I gave myself this challenge because I need to learn the computer programs and I figure I may as well have a chance to win some income while practicing these new skills. You can see the finished version to the right. Please read on to see my process and thoughts as I designed and created this unique illustration. Then please go to http://www.greeneyed.com/contest_page.php?contest=1&entry=45 to vote on my design.
In brief. the contest is put on by a company called “Green Eyed Monster” and they are promoting a healthy environment. My task was to design a bag that would display this message visually and appeal to the common person.
Any good illustration has to start with lots of planning and sketching of ideas. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to let my thoughts simmer day after day until I had developed a brilliant stew. Instead I ended up relying heavily on my previous illustrations to fill in the gaps. As seen below, I started with very basic concept sketch for a green eyed monster. I actually was thinking about skipping the contest all together because I found out about it too late. While watching a commercial I thought of the idea to have a green monster with one eye and there would be a globe with the continents where his eyeball should be.
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And now the final again.