Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Hi guys!

I decided to do something different today and post the process I went through on a recent (very quick) project I did for WWF Canada . It's WWF's 50th anniversary and in celebration of that, they wanted a birthday panda illustration for the front cover of their children's newsletter. I was excited and honored that they chose me to illustrate it for them.  As you know, I've done work with WWF Canada for the past 10 years (wow, didn't realize it was that long until I wrote it!)  So it was exciting for me to do this for them. 

I started with a concept. They wanted a Panda bear celebrating his birthday, something cute for the kids. So I started by coming up with a cute panda character design...


Then once I did that I made a list of friends that would celebrate with our Panda. Since this is for the Canadian newsletter, I choose Canadian wildlife, that is on the endagered or at risk list. Animals that I know WWF has programs set up for right now. Then I worked them into the composition. (doodle right of the panda designs)
Afterwards I worked on some roughs for the other animals to be placed in the illustration. 


Then I worked on laying them out, and creating a couple options for the editor at WWF.  






I tried to keep everything pretty natural, the decorations, the "table" even the candles ended up being bees wax lit by two very accommodating fireflies! Here is the final art (text and logo are part of the mock up, their in house designer lays it out, so the final print might be a little different then this one below).
  

As I said this was a very fast turn around project, I had 3 days from submission of roughs to final art.  So there are not as many revisions or steps that can happen in other projects, but this gives you a nice idea of how I work.  Thanks to WWF Canada again for the fun project! 

Check out their website for info on the animals in the illustration.
Woodland Caribou
Polar Bear
Vancouver Island Marmots
Black footed Ferret
Monarch butterfly
Burrowing owls
Northern leopard frog


No comments: