Orangutan takes a bath

At last, it is complete! My Children's Book Illustration III final project. Last night saw the end to a wonderful class - Emilie Boon was a superb teacher, and I think my work developed in leaps and bounds over a short space of time. I will miss the weekly critiques with my classmates, hopefully to be continued online.

I am actually planning on making some adjustments to the main bathroom scene... more bubbles, and more direct lighting, and perhaps some detail on the girl's dress but here it is for now.

First, I formed the structure of the room using foam core. I sculpted the tub from an air dry clay using a foam core base. The bathroom tiles are pre-cut wooden squares which I painted, and covered in Triple Thick varnish.

With the main elements of the bathroom complete, I created rough models from plasticine to get an idea of pose and placement.

Next I sculpted my main characters using Super Sculpey, and painted with acrylic paints. Looking just a little odd with no hair!

With the main scene completed, I started work on the orangutan for the spot illustration on the opposite page. Unfortunately I have no photos of the fur-application process, but I used Tibetan lambswool and fabric-tac glue. It was a laborious process!

This is my new lightbox set-up. Photography is not my forte, but I know I need to start being methodical with my lighting! This lightbox was built from 1.5" diameter PVC pipe about $3 for a 10 foot piece (the nice people at Home Depot were kind enough to chop the pipe into 4 x 2ft pieces and 2 x 3ft pieces), then all you need is some connecter pieces, clips, lamps and a white sheet.