Illustration Friday Week 8 - Hat

Initial ideas

Beanie, bowler hat, top hat, cap, beret, "I'll eat my hat", magic hat, the mad hatter, witch, winter, cold, animals wearing hats, helmets, military, crown. 

Animals who live in the cold - seals, polar bears, penguins, arctic fox, wolf.  

I found some pieces of work by René Gruau which I really like the simplicity of, it might be good for me to simplify my work in this way to make it more shape based. However, i'm not sure this brief is the best time to do this, especially as the theme of 'hat' is portrayed so obviously. This week's theme was hat which is instantly a very visual word as it is a physical thing. I tried to think outside of the box a bit with some of my ideas but then settled for the idea of a hat to keep something warm. To push this idea I wanted to choose an animal who is typically related to a cold environment. I chose a penguin because it was appropriate and plus, I like penguins. 

Roughs 

I didn't do many roughs because I already had this image in my head of a number of Penguins in a row, all wearing different patterned knitted hats. I quickly moved on to the drawing process. 

Reference material 

I found some images from Google and Pinterest to work from, although the aim for this illustration is going to be simple, innocent, playful and 'cute' if you like, it is still important to me to get the body shape and markings on the bird correct. 

Drawing

I chose ink as my medium for this because I could play around with textures and gradients in this experimental stage. I tried about a few different ways of drawing penguins but settled on the smoothest one. I still managed to get some texture in this but I think the more soft and gentle approach with the ink was important to get across the idea of these penguins still being childish and innocent. 

New composition

While I was drawing these penguins a new idea arose in my mind. One of the penguins I was drawing was looking up so I thought that this could be in admiration/jealousy and of the object causing this was a hat, it would put across the theme more clearly. I decided to go with this idea, making one of the penguins bigger looking very pleased with himself because of his woolly hat, and the smaller hat-less penguin looking up to him. 

Photoshop 

I arranged the individual drawings on photoshop the way I wanted them, leaving the background totally white to add to the simplicity and innocence of the illustration. I played around with levels a bit to get the tones of grey to all work together and didn't want to over complicate it any more than that 

Submission and Evaluation

I submitted my illustration to the website after reducing the file size. I received a few comments from people (in conversation) saying this would make a nice Christmas card so there is potential that design or a similar one might make an appearance later in the year. 

I am really happy with my submission this week and I feel this is more of the direction I want to work in. One improvement I might make to this piece would be to add a subtle suggestion of the ground, maybe some snow around their feet or some shadows.