Freestyle Academy proudly presents

The Muchers: A Junior Self-Portrait Illustration by Michelle Staufenbiel (2012)

This picture demonstrates how being a pushover may lead to being out of food. This can occur if you don't stand up for yourself. Recently whenever I hang out at lunch with friends and acquaintances I was irritated to discover that many people try to eat my snacks and foods. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind sharing a handful of chips, but if I turn my back for too long, that handfull may turn into the whole bag of chips. Then I end up going to my next class hungry and grumpy. The book in the picture symbolizes me, because I love to read. The pigs represents all the people in my life who eat my food. I intended for the pigs to look unlikable and greedy, because I wanted the viewers to sympathise with the book, who is being walked all over and eaten. The food that is sprawled all over the book is an example of all the foods and snacks that people might try to eat from me. When I first started this project I had a strong core idea of what I wanted to show. But I had no idea of how I was going to show the viewers that. After a while of brainstorming with my friends and Mrs, Parkinson I came up with the idea of using pigs and a book. I did eventually decide to make the pigs, food and book look less realistic and more cartoonish. I wanted to create a more funny and less serious atmosphere because I feel it gives my picture a more fun feel.

To create this masterpiece I used Adobe Illustrator. It was very difficult because it was my first time working with that program. I struggled because at first my goal was to make the pig look as realistic as possible. But when I was halfway through the project I realized that the picture would look better if it looked more cartoonish. I also struggled using the pen in adobe illustrator. In order to copy the outline of an object in adobe illustrator you have to trace the outline with a pen, its sometimes a long and grueling process. The first few times my hands kept shaking. But after a few practice runs I was able to get a hold of it. I also had to adjust to adding layers, every time you added a new outline, layer after layer was added. All in all this project was refreshing because I got to work with unique idea and make it into something that me and many others can relate to.
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