Doodle for Google

DOWNTIME

FEB. 26, 2019 — digital illustration

For this project, we were tasked to design a piece to submit to the Doodle for Google competition. The theme that we were given was "When I grow up, I hope..."

I was kind of stuck on the idea for this one for a while, because I don't really know what I hope happens when I grow up. So, I spent a long time thinking about that (and vetoing several ideas) before deciding to draw something pertaining to the hope that I still find the time to draw when I grow up. I drew some monsters that made the shape of the letters in Google, and then I filled in the rest of the space: I drew a hand holding a pen, a to-do list to the side and a sticky note opposite, and I added some hastily scrawled words as an added detail. After the outlining was done, as per usual I went back in with color. I decided to leave the monsters black and white, since they were supposed to just be doodles and typically I don't color my doodles in. After the flat colors were done, I shaded and added highlights to finish it off.

I really don't like the way that this came out, and so I plan on going back and fixing it. After printing it off, I realize that the shadows are too dark, and that they cause everything to blend together on the right side—the details can't be picked out, and the shading on the hand is so bad that the back fingers blend into the table (which I realize makes it look like the hand only had two fingers). I do like the concept, even if the execution was poor, though, and I had fun attempting to create monsters that fit the shapes of the Google letters. Hopefully, after I fix the shading and perhaps add some more texture, the piece will look better.

EDIT: Due to my dislike of the finished product, I went back in and lightened up the shadows in order to make the image print off better. And having done that, I'm much more pleased with the finished product—the details are now visible, and the entirety of the picture no longer looks like a grey blob. I'm glad that I decided to fix it.