Sketches
The article was about how more and more athletes are starting to take care of their mental health. The article even goes over how the audience tend to not think about how the athlete is doing mentally.
Sketch 1: An athlete being chained to the weight of their struggles
Sketch 2: An athlete based on Naomi Osaka, who the article mentions, performing but not in the right headspace
Sketch 3: Animals that eat nectar sucking the lifeforce out of a flower that looks like a brain. The animals each represent the struggles athletes faces.
I had a difficult time choosing between sketch 1 and 2. Sketch 3 I felt would be misleading and looked more like something for a scientific article. In the end I chose sketch 2 because I felt I would have the most fun working on that.
Sketch 2: An athlete based on Naomi Osaka, who the article mentions, performing but not in the right headspace
Sketch 3: Animals that eat nectar sucking the lifeforce out of a flower that looks like a brain. The animals each represent the struggles athletes faces.
I had a difficult time choosing between sketch 1 and 2. Sketch 3 I felt would be misleading and looked more like something for a scientific article. In the end I chose sketch 2 because I felt I would have the most fun working on that.
1st Version
Initially, I drew the illustration digitally. However, I felt it would be better if it was done using watercolor.
2nd version
This was done with watercolor while the scribble was done digitally. The feedback I received for this was that background being too dark, so the scribble is not noticeable. Additionally, the scribble can be bigger.
Final Version + Mockup
I decided to brighten the head for more contrast and darkened the rest to draw more attention to the head. I redid the scribble and made it a bit bigger.
