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Editorial Illustration-Article One.

New Scientist reports, explores and interprets the results of human endeavour set in the context of society and culture.

This was an initial concept produced for the article ' The voice of reason. '

I had a strong image in my head of two silhouettes almost like the well known and seen optical illusion image that can be seen as a vase or two heads facing each other. I played around with this idea in adobe illustrator. But I wanted to produce something slightly less robotic and introduced hand rendered faces. I felt this would give the illustrations more of a connection with the reader as opposed to an unknown emotionless silhouette.
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Here was my first drawing that I started to digitally edit and manipulate in Photoshop. I introduced colour. Blue and green was mentioned in the article but it was mainly personal preference that made the selection. I used very soft tones because I didnt want the image to overpower and outweigh the article.
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I thought I would try out an image based on another hand drawing produced. I felt this drawing had an interesting angle and qualities that were more interesting such as the hair as opposed to the first drawing. So decided to take this through the process of the first one. Neatening the pencil lines, editing the contrast to make them stand out more and then adding colour...

But I also then went on to play around with dissecting the faces. I also had the idea of using shapes to represent words, I used circles. I started putting in circles then realised I could link them all through the mouth's ears meeting at the head (The article mentioned listening,speaking and thinking) so I placed the circles in a way that would be able to be linked through a track of lines (or track of thought.)

Above is The final realisation. This was chosen because I found the composition wasn't to overwhelming. It reflected the topic and sat well within the context of the article. It has a decorative function although is slightly more in-depth.

My only criticism would be that there is a lot of white space around the image. I could have introduced a background. Also, on reflection, I could have played around with more images of the same person and maybe not have had a symmetrical composition as the area is very large and invites maybe more of a complex piece.
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Editorial Illustration-Article Two.

New Scientist magazine.

Again I had a very strong idea of what I wanted my spot Illustration to look like for this article, an image that smoothly moved on from my previous brief.

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Here is an image I had previously screen captured onto my computer but I felt it corresponded well with the idea of man vs computer more so man being re-imaged/changed/manipulated by computers.

I jotted down a few ideas but decided to jump straight onto adobe illustrator to create a silhouette of a persons head (head referring to mind and behaviour) which soon took shape.

I then took this silhouette and placed it into photoshop and added gradients to it. I thought about black and white and how that would sit well within the article but as it was only a small image I thought I could make it slightly more interesting by adding colour... so did.
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The above image is the final illustration. The shuffled segments of the head reflect how the computer manipulates your mind and 'scatters your thoughts.' I wanted the head to look largely digitally manipulated and added lots of colour and then edited the head to look pixelated like the images i had screen captured. Again the piece has a decorative function but can be looked into as having more qualities than just aesthetic appeal.