Prankster: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Joshua Stukenborg (2018)

My flash fiction is about a young man who is trying to make a living off of creating Youtube videos. He spends all his waking hours either editing his videos, or pranking his friends and family which leads to tension and drama between him and his loved ones. After an extravagant prank, his family had had enough and they stopped being in his videos and hanging out with him because all he did was prank them. This made him realize the importance of loved ones as well as learning to care about people other than himself.

To create this illustration, we went through a brainstorming process to think of animals that would fit our characters, and then sketch it. For this project we had to incorporate either one point or two point linear perspective, which added another layer of difficulty. For me it was challenging figuring out where the character would go in relation to the background and the surrounding environment. My character is a combination of a chicken’s feet, an Adélie penguin’s body, an owl’s head, a praying mantises arms, and a moose’s antlers. All of the animals are tied to a characteristic of my character. The chicken represents his cowardice. The Adélie penguin and praying mantis showcase his selfishness and how he uses his friends and family to benefit himself. The owl and the moose signify his solitary behavior and how he stays up all night working alone. We then took images that we found online and traced them in Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t depict a specific background in my flash fiction so I created a location that showcases his solitary lifestyle, as well as his mischievous personality. I’m really proud of how my creature came together.