A mock spot-illustration intended to illustrate a factoid. I chose to bring light to this interesting breeding project going on in South Africa, The Quagga Project. Whether the 'quaggas' they're attempting to revive are considered legitimate or not, I still find it absolutely mindblowing that dormant genes can be tapped into so easily! Quaggas weren't really bright orange, but I'll admit to being heavily inspired by Terryl Whitlatch's portrayal in her Katurran Odyssey illustrations. It also helped to obviously differentiate the two species, so I went with it. Like most of my work thus far, this piece was created with a haphazard mixture of media. I took some fairly awful photos in attempt to illustrate the process...
It began with a watercolor wash, which ended up being far too desaturated. Cue the bright blue marker layer, another watercolor layer, then the white gouache on the zebra's stripes. I followed up with alternating layers of watercolor and colored pencil detailing.
...and we finally arrived at a finished piece!
