Paul The Octopus

We had to start off by doing 8 thumbnail ideas before choosing 2 of them to take further.


This was the first of the 2 ideas I chose. This one is a more realistic take than the other- the other idea was favoured by my tutors and other students on my course so I developed that one more.

This is the initial development of the second idea in black and white- this idea was liked by my tutor but I'm still not sure that my style of drawing really works in this context.... my tutor did make the point that if I was in the position of doing an editorial illustration in real life they would have hired me after already seeing examples of my work so I wouldn't have to worry about them not liking my style...

This one is collage on request from my tutor- I think it would be more at home on a birthday card...

This is my favourite- much more subtle and detailed than the others (it is done in coloured pencil).

Here the top one is done with coloured pencils and the bottom is done with watercolours. The top one is way to 'garish' (unfortunately it was all I had with me at the time) and the bottom one isn't detailed or 'exact' enough for my liking although I much prefer the subtle colours.

The second part of our module (after the Darwin bit) was on editorial illustration. We got a choice of headlines all about animals and had to pick one to illustrate- mine was on Paul the psychic octopus. This isn't my preferred area of illustration at all and I'm not particularly pleased with any of it but here is some of my initials ideas etc for you to have a look at.