Assigned in my Design Illustration 2 class, the project called for a shirt design of an endangered species. Immediately, I thought of a tiger. I knew I could go crazy with the stripes, so my emphasis was almost entirely on the linework. Difficult at first, creating each and every line in illustrator gave it a nice graphic look.

Once I got the initial linework done, I went ahead and took watercolor to paper. I knew I would need texture for the fur, so with that in mind I did the following watercolor sketches.

Once I had my lines and my texture, I merged the two together. It took a while to get the right effects I wanted. The rustic look of the finished product definitely lends itself to the idea of a dying species.

 

As for type, I went for something simple and easy to read. I didn't want to take focus from the tiger from my type so keeping it minimal was a must.

I love the subtle orange and red that turned up in the final result. The project received an A- upon completion. The type was said to be too disconnected from the tiger which I completely agree with. If I were to redo this project I would have incorporated the type within the linework, which could have looked really good or really bad.