Illustration Portfolio | 1. COVID & Flu Editorial Sketch

This is the first in a series of projects I made for my college portfolio in my Illustration I class. 

For this project, I was tasked with designing the thumbnail art for a possible news editorial pertaining to the sudden surge of both COVID-19 as well as the Flu in September of 2021, and how many people may have to learn how to adapt and cope with their new microscopic neighbors. 

I started with a series of three possible concept sketches for the project, each with their own little fun design:

One, a simple image of a COVID molecule graphic on a crosswalk sign.

Two, a cute image of an anthropomorphic COVID molecule opening the door to greet their new neighbors.

And three, just for the memes, a design where the molecules of both COVID and Influenza are posing as Jessie and James from the Pokemon anime, saying their iconic line "Prepare for trouble, and make it double."

Overall, I'm kind of proud for that last one. But when the time came for my class to take a vote on the winner, it was the second image that got the most votes. 

Now, they did speak both their praises and their concerns for the third image; namely, they admired the Pokemon reference, but they also felt like it'd run into certain copyright issues if it were ever vetoed into the thumbnail image to an article editorial. So, I took their concern and did what I could on the the image with the neighborly molecule.

And, after a bit more re-rendering with adding extra shading (as well as additional furniture) to the sketch re-vamp, I'd say this design would be good to go to act as a basis, should I ever decide to make a digital recreation of this image. But until then, this sketch isn't that bad on its own either.