UPDATED Evolution/De-evolution of Man - MAXIM illustration

[Castor]

Finally the magazine is out and I can show you my most recent work.
This was a double page illustration for the Portuguese MAXIM magazine in the CIRCUS MAXIMUS section.

The theme was the evolution/ de-evolution of man.
I had one week to complete the illustration and it was very specific in the characters request and poses. The background objects I had freedom to choose.

In the de-evolution part, the third character is a portuguese only joke, the man is called José Castelo Branco and he is one of those rich guys that does lives from magazines and shallow tv shows like big brother. He is hated by almost every portuguese and he won a VIP contest (similar to big brother) very recently in our country.
He was also caught in the airport smugling diamonds (thats why he as earings and necklace and the diamond cane) and it was a big scandal here because he quickly got away (since he was a public figure).

The space gaps and the apparent unbalanced picture is because the huge red title is at the top ( behind the characters heads) and has got a few explanations of each character. I'll soon receive the final layout and I'll post it here.

I have a higher res image (so you can see all the details here )

UPDATED WITH FINAL MAGAZINE VERSION



Comments and critics are,as usual, very welcome!

[Carnifex]

pretty good,but most of them have overly huge torsos(in relationship to their legs),aswell as huuuge hands. the far to the right one has a too big head aswell.
and i'm not sure about the mix of lineart and watercolour-style colouring. either make the colouring harder,or take away some of the lineart. they conflict with each other.

on further thought, i would take out the lineart completely.it just doesn't fit into the rest.

[Rebecca]

Their legs are very short, and the woman's skin tone is very different from the rest. And the light source is very uninteresting. But I can tell that you have put a lot of effort into it.

[BigDaddy_GFS]

I like it. I get the joke, though I didn't know about Josie.
Welcome to the board.

[Qitsune]

Their legs are very short, and the woman's skin tone is very different from the rest. And the light source is very uninteresting. But I can tell that you have put a lot of effort into it.

Isn't it actually a man?

[Pixeldragoon]

Yes it is- ANd if I had to guess I'd say that the big torso/head thing was intentionall/stylistic.

[Castor]

Yes! I was starting to get worried that i hadnt conveied that the distortioned proportions were made on purpose to achieve a more cartoon look, and yes, the final character is a famous Portuguese homosexual that looks almost like a woman but it is a man.

About the contrast you are right, it should be stronger to give more live to the characters, fortunately after it was printed that is what exactly happened because of the paper reaction to the ink

I had to keep the lineart because i'm not yet very good painting with a wacom and completely loosing the lineart (this is my second fully wacom painted drawing) so I end up using them as guides and they are kept in the final version, but still I like the final result, maybe it just needs to be more polished?

About the lightsource, the idea that they wanted me to convey was to imitate the old Darwin famous evolutions drawings where the characters are simple in the lighting and composition. THe final image published in the paper also has a very strong red title that ocuppies almost 20% of the top of the page so I wanted to keep it simple so that it wouldnt be overcomposited in the end.

[Bad Brownie]

I find it silly and cartoonish and I like it quite a bit, darn it. = )

[Pawige]

J. Bond's lower hand is really bothering me, it looks like he's resting his elbow on it and is curling his fingers in. In all the bond pictures I could find, that hand was either behind the elbow, resting palm-down on his ribcage, or between the upper and forearm of the gun hand, gripping the lower section of the bicep.

[Matt_Waggle]

I think alot of people jump on the anatomy "mistakes" etc. But I think its excused. Ive done a few magazine illustrations and the goal is to have a quick visual impact that gets the idea of the article across. Which I feel you've done a great job. The only problem (which youve explained) is the huge gap in the middle. But it reads very clear, from ape to MAN to Fairy, nice work.

[Castor]

Pawige - That hand was taken from a bond reference, I thought it was quite weird too, but since it was a good reference I sticked with it. In the end I changed it a lot because it always loooked weir (you are right, it still looks weird!)

Matt_Waggle - The gap in the middle was an official thing I had to do. THis was a 2 page illo and when printed in the magazine, the page bending eats a lot of space. They gave me the exact measures they wanted for the gap. In the end the Cro Magnon (4th guy from the left) elbow still almost got hidden in the magazine crease.

Still have a looot to learn I guess

[DSillustration]

for those of you who aren't getting the jose castelo branco bit...
he really is the most annoying guy-type-thing in the world!

[Castor]

OK. Finally I was given the final version of the illustration as it showed up in the magazine. Maybe now it will look more balanced and well composited.
What do u think now? (ill also update in the first post.