From Rough to Final : Anatomy of an Election Editorial Illustration

 

Here's a shot of an illustration I did for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. the article was about how to host a bi-partisan election night watch party.  (I don't live in Fort Worth, but a friend was nice enough to take the photo and send it to me.)  

As always, click the illustrations to see them bigger.

 

Here's the final. 

(They cropped off the right side, which was what I wanted.)

The original rough sent to the client. They liked it, but needed it to be more tall than wide. In the final I changed all of the character drawings but the male donkey.

With the female elephant coming in from the right, and her donkey pal across the illustration from her, they needed a relationship, some reason to interact. "He's got her flag," was my solution. Note also, the switch from the elephant grabbing the Tasty Snack with his hand, to a more natural for elephants with-his-trunk action.

On my way from the elephant above to the elephant used in the final, there was brief stop here. This was from photo reference, so the elephant is more representational than my style.
(Though I still really like him.)

Here's Mr. Final Elephant.