Inclusion Design

For this project I had to create a design for the inclusion competition that represents the meaning of inclusion in a community. I made this illustration of a group of pirates because I think pirates are a good example of including people with disabilities in a community. An example of this is if one of them has a physical disability like they are missing a hand; the other pirates wouldn't exclude him, instead they would give him a hook and move on.

I started out by sketching a few different ways that the pirates could be arranged on the page. At first I thought I would have it look like they were just floating on the page but I couldn't figure out how to make it look how I picture it so I tried a few other options. I ended up liking the one where there is one pirate in front and all the other pirates are peaking out from behind him. I also knew I wanted to do a very simple illustration style because of how many figures I included. I started out sketching it with pencil as I decided on the designs of each specific character and then I went over it with red colored pencil to simplify the lines. Next I used watercolor paints for the color. The last thing I did was go over all the lines in thin black pen so they were visible again. I didn't go around the border in pen because I think it makes the pirates who are breaking the border stand out more.

By having the one pirate in the front I created emphasis on that character. There is even more emphasis on him because he is the only one with a blue shirt. I used the same colors (red, black, white, grey) repeatedly on all the pirates' clothes to create some unity between them. I used the pen lines to make the pirates stand out from the background and have the details be more visible. I also used a striped pattern on some of the pirates shirts to make the clothes more interesting and because I feel like striped clothes are sort of connected to ships and sailing. I created some balance by having a pirate break the border on both sides and by putting the front pirate directly in the middle of the group. Their faces are made up of the same simple shapes because of the style I wanted to draw in. I left some empty space on the bottom because I didn't want the entire page to be that cluttered. My project evolved as I added details to the pirate to make them different from each other and decided how I wanted each character to look. My next steps could be to experiment with both simple and complex character designs and compare each process.