Creating a sense of adventure and exploration through illustration
Earlier this year I worked on a commission that involved a family dog and cat. It was perfect, I love drawing animals and got to capture the specific character and behavior between them. What really excited me about the pieces were the specific style and setting requests by the client. They wanted the animals to be world explorers from the 1920s with a vintage look to them.
Both drawings are shown above in their final stage. Details including vintage luggage, a pith helmet, and other gear were drawn as objects found in the 1920s. The clouds and sepia colors are an homage to vintage world fairs and promotional travel posters.
During the process I came up with several ideas for future drawings I'd like to work on. Some of those have finally come to fruition. I wanted to start out by creating a set of drawings with animals exploring and going on adventures in the 1920s-1940s. The current drawings include a heavy focus on transportation, and involve adventures aboard a steamship, by land, and by parachute. I have already drawn hot air balloons and airplanes with these animals, but I may redraw them in this style.
The drawing above is one example, and the steamship is actually drawn from a real model. I also took the bike below from a popular film that was set in the 30s-40s. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which film.
The latest drawings are only a start, and I am really excited about current projects I'm working on. These will be more about the setting and landscape. Hopefully by mid December I'll be releasing prints of "Wonders of the World" posters for sale. In addition to these, building off of each Wonder and it's origin will be several illustrations of either landmarks or animals from that region. Stay tuned.