The Americans (not just the Democrats, the Republicans have voiced similar concerns) have told off the Tories here in the UK for embracing European partners with views that are a little too worrying, a little too closely. The Guardian comment piece that inspired this editorial illustration. I immediately wrote a little something for my blog Dragonbat when I saw this comment piece and of course, I would need an illustration.
I decided on something simple that told the story as directly as possible. So America’s anger is represented in the illustration as a big nasty 3d eagle with red eyes. As Europe is the backdrop to the story, we have the simple blue flag with stars in the background of the of the image, actually it is more accurately an image texture on the floor of the 3d space of the illustration. But…
How to represent the Tory party was a little more problematic, their leader David Cameron is a bit bland and hard to caricature, but I couldn’t think of a better option. I gave him a very dubious looking arm band in the European colours to signify the bone of contention in our story and there you have it, done.
From initial sketch to completed illustration the whole image with 3d elements added in the ever reliable 3d workhorse Blender and a few tweaks done in the more jittery and expensive, but still useful, Photoshop took about three hours. The picture isn’t perfect – and there comes a time when you just have to call it done – but the huge advantage of this illustration technique is speed, it allows you to add colour and interest even to something as fast moving and ephemeral as a blog post, and that can’t be a bad thing.
