Illustrating a project with Aedes albopictus for a Master's Thesis
This was the first commissioned work I did for a post-graduate student. As a student of qualitative rodent morphology, I knew little or nothing about molecular biology, microbiology and parasitology. Even so, this client trusted me and we embarked on the illustration project he proposed. We had some meetings, brainstorming sessions and exchanges of long audios so that I could understand exactly how it would be most appropriate to illustrate each stage of his huge work with mosquitos, and below are some of the results of this partnership.
• Aedes albopictus and the occurrence areas included in the study •
First of all, we developed a base illustration of the mosquito that showed all its taxonomic characteristics: position of appendages, arrangement of bristles and the pattern of the back, differentiating it from Aedes aegypti. From this, we created scenarios that would be used throughout the student's slideshow as they introduced their areas of study. The illustrations were made in round icon formats, where, in their central portion, there is a relatively empty space so that the mosquito design can be placed when desired.
In a later stage, the client requested a map with the exact collection points used in their work, containing legends pointing to these locations. Furthermore, the map reliably represents the geographic area used in the study, since the drawing was based on an image from Google Maps, that is, the scale remained proportional. The artistic license in this illustration lies in the reduction of the forest and the number of houses represented, but the points of importance were represented in a cartoonish way and with highlighted coloring to attract attention.
• Aedes albopictus internal anatomy •
In this section we can see the illustrations developed to show the mosquito's intestinal tract, with the third drawing being an illustration of the midgut isolated from the rest of the intestine.
• Illustrating manual laboratory procedures •
This part was a bit of a challenge. It involved procedures that at the time I was unaware of or hadn't done myself in the laboratory, so I needed to study a little to avoid designing something that, for someone knowledgeable in the area, would be terribly wrong. Here we can see illustrative images that were used in slides: cell culture, smear procedure and pipetting hands.
• Others •
Above, representations of a genomic library and an eppendorf containing DNA fragments respectively
Above, representations of an insectary and the gene 16S respectively
Above, tripartite and multipartite relationships respectively
