'Imposter Syndrome'

Eight in ten people suffer from Imposter Syndrome, a psychological pattern which makes sufferers, usually high achievers, believe they are frauds in their field. 

We were given the brief to design a hero image for an editorial on this condition for a new web magazine to be published by White Lights.  I decided to reverse the saying 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' to show a sheep trying to get by in the cut-throat world of wolf businessmen.  

It wanted to make the sheep look tiny and threatened by the danger of discovery, so I made him much smaller than the wolves and had them surround and tower over him to increase his fear. It was difficult to convey his emotion as his face is hidden behind a mask, so I made his eyes point down and to the left, as liars and nervous people's do in times of stress. 

I sketched images in pencil before creating the shapes and colours in Adobe Illustrator. I then moved into Photoshop to create the textures. There is an animated version of this too.