INTER E-Magazine: Illustrated Guide to Good, Difficult Conversations

INTER is an online magazine run by The Interfaith Youth Core. INTER's main goal is to post stories and content created by young adults around the theme of interfaith learning and cooperation. While I was still a college student, I was contacted by a couple of members of the INTER staff who were looking for someone to create illustrations for a guide. They wanted illustrations that were "sort of messy, but cute"  and incorporated a watercolor style of coloring. The guide's purpose is to teach individuals how to navigate difficult conversations with family members during the holiday season. I worked with two other individuals on this project, but my main role was to create the visual aspects of the guide. The original article with the guide can be found here. For an explanation on my process for this piece, scroll down to the "About the Process" section at the end of the page.

About the Process

After brainstorming with the project team, I listed out the different scenes I might have to sketch. In addition, I sketched what I envisioned the main character of the guide might look like.
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From there, I started sketching out the individual scenes.

When I presented these original sketches to the team, the main note I received was the main character should look a little more ethnically ambiguous. The solution we came up with was to make her hair more curly looking. The audience for this guide is racially diverse, so we wanted to make it easy for the viewer to identify with the main character. In the next couple sketches you will be able to observe the change in hairstyle. 

I brought the sketches into the Adobe mobile app, Draw. From there I traced over the original sketches, cleaned up the lines, added details, and added color. Below you will be able to see the evolution of the original sketches to the finished images. Specifically, I would like to point out the changes in the main character's hair. In addition, all of the characters have bluish or purplish skin and hair. This is to also keep the characters appearing ethnically ambiguous.