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Tardigrade Parade

An illustration project I did in my 1st year of university, where I had to create various illustrations of tardigrades based on a scientific article, that talked about how resilient they are, and how they are able to survive in the freezing cold and the vacuum of space. 

Digital illustration of several colourful tardigrades
Digital illustration of several colourful tardigrades

I started off with some basic sketches of the character designs I had chosen for this project. I used this as an opportunity to see how i would be able to draw the tardigrades from different angles, lightings, and how far I would be able to stretch the proportions whilst still keeping it looking like a tardigrade.

Digital illustration of a bear and a tardigrade
digital illustration of a bear and some tardigrades

Since tardigrades had been lovingly given the nickname "little water bears" when they were first discovered, I wanted to see if I would be able to include actual bears in the illustrations to show how they could interact in a comical way.

tardigrade with curly hair
tardigrade with hair looking through microscope

One of the workshops we did for this project was a character design workshop where we had to try and create self insert character designs in the style we had decided to use.

We were also tasked with creating a short comic based on our chosen articles, which also included our self insert characters. 

illustration of a tardigrade astronaut
Emilio Illustrates - Portfolio
illustration of a tardigrade astronaut

The final illustrated outcomes for this project. 

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