Dragon Detector

The amazing art director from Asset International, SooJin Buzelli, gave me a fun assignment a few weeks back for the magazine Plan Sponsor. Now, this magazine has is about mutual funds and financial instruments that are way above my pay-grade and interest level. The particular piece I was given was summarized: Following the struggles of the financial crisis, the index providers are more important than ever for European plan sponsors. This is a very dense and not very enticing synopsis. But, SooJin asked me to respond to the prompt "Knowledge is Power." This is much easier to define for a visual metaphor, which is part of what makes her a great art director. (Take notes, student designers).

I had just seen one of my former students, Andrea Taylor, in a wonderful production of "The Hobbit" here in St. Louis. She played the Elf Queen but ALSO she created and built a wonderfully massive Smaug puppet for the shows final scene. I'd been in a mood for drawing dragons ever since!

Above, a very bad picture of it, I'm sure she has a better one somewhere.  

I sent three sketches that focused on some kind of tactical advantage because of tools or intelligence, and they all involved dragons! 

I did a few color studies and tests to figure out if I wanted to draw it all by hand or color it digitally. It ended up being a mix of both. Thanks for the piece SooJin!