THIS: 209

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN- War Against Ourselves

January 19, 2018

A new illustration for Scientific American about promising new cellular medications, which had some promising initial results, but now further studies are showing that these drugs don't work in twenty-five percent of patients. 
Inital thumbnails were a bit abstract and it took a second round to narrow it down to a somewhat more direct and appropriate image. With complex information the illuatration needed to more direct. I still love some of these initial ideas and I'm sure they'll resurface at some point. 

As an after thought I thought of a more direct image that seemed to address the editorial concerns about the other directions being too abstract. Two hands opposing, with one turning into something positive and the other negative. one a flower the other a dead flower. Michael said the editor liked this direction but he still wanted to use the gouache style, suggested maybe we could adapt this into one of the previous thumbnail directions #34.
Once we found the right formula everthing went really fast. I used the Birds from the earlier thumbnails and turned their heads opposing to make it more obvious that I turned one of the birds heads into a skull.

 Much thanks for this super fun project to the folks at Scientific American and Super art director Michael Mrak. can't wait to check it out on the news stand!