Read All Over

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This illustration, although intended to be humours, has an underlying serious aspect, that is reflected in the headline on the newspaper.

It was born from some creative thinking that was stirring in my mind, about a joke (one of the few I can remember). The joke is one of these simple and juvenile ones, like a "knock, knock", but the nice thing about this joke is that it has the twisted advantage of having two answers. So no matter how smart the person you tell it to, there is a way to fool them by giving the second answer. The joke goes like this; "What is Black and White and Read (Red) All Over?" The answers could therefore be; "A newspaper", and/or "A sunburnt penguin."

So the idea was to combine the two aspects of the joke, with a little frank reality as seen on the headlines of the newspaper. As a race, we have singularly destroyed the planet for us and other earthlings, and the idea was to reflect this in the newspaper image and the relatively glued viewing of the three penguins. Like the affairs of the humans are affecting them, which it is.

The design of the newspaper was inspired by "The Guardian", which is one of my favourite newspapers, and I mocked a version up, using one of their ecological headlines. I had a change in the title of the paper, to give more emphasis on the ecological aspect. The newspaper was the hardest bit to do, but as soon as I got past that one day painting the photograph, it was all down hill.

If you'd like to buy the first book, you can see it here: http://www.blurb.com/b/3164942-animal-behaviour

If you'd like to buy the second book, you can see it here: http://www.blurb.com/b/4178553-animal-behaviour-ii
If you'd like to see the process of how these drawings are done, you can view it here: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Animal-Behaviour-II-movie/3267731

This shows the initial mock-up, pasted together on A3 layout paper. The newspaper was created in Photohop and later warped into position.

This is the drawing after being transfered onto the Bristol paper, with carbon.

Even though I liked the idea of hand rendering the newspaper in the pencil version, I chose not to, and added it later in the computer.

The pencil render complete.

Taking a different approach this time. Normally beginning with the faces, I chose this time to begin with the newspaper, as it had some complexities involved.