At the end of July I’ll be attending the SCBWI LA Conference, and I’m so excited! I also signed up for the Illustrator Intensive, and as part of the intensive we were given a homework assignment that will get critiqued during the event! The assignment was to revamp a piece from our current portfolio using one or more of the tools they specified which included things like: changing perspective, focusing more on setting, changing to monochromatic palette, etc. I chose a personal illustration I made about 2 years ago called Bug Brigade. This is the original illustration:

I’ve always liked this piece, I think it has an interesting concept and alludes to a story or narrative. Why are there beetles wearing flight gear? Why are they standing in front of a plane seemingly posing for group photo? Are they a military brigade?

However, I made this piece two years ago and my skills and style has changed drastically since then. But that’s a great sign that I’m improving as time goes on! Anyways, I had a few things that bothered me about this piece now: the perspective of the plane is whack (and flat), the bugs are all wobbly and don’t seem to be standing on the same linear plane, one bug is missing a leg(!), the color palette is ok, but I tend to work in more refined 2 color palettes now, and lastly, I prefer to work with pencil now instead of paint. So, I set off making the new illustration with all those things in mind!

Here’s a GIF of my process of making the illustration:

Here’s the pencil drawing that is the base of the final illustration:

 

Here’s the final piece again:

 

And here’s some close up shots of the final piece!