Compliance: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Kearstyn Harkins (2018)

My flash fiction, titled Compliance, is about a scientist named Dianne. Dianne starts off the story making an unknown substance. She is lost in her own thoughts when an interesting, alien orange creature finds its way in her lab. After trying to catch the creature for quite some time, she is just about to give up when a woman emerged from nowhere. This woman had a faint purple glow to her. When the woman noticed Dianne, she transported her to a different world. Dianne tried to comprehend the phenomenon, but when she could not find an answer she decided to accept the inexplicable.

For the actual picture, we started with rough sketches of different animals. We had to merge these sketches together to show off the traits of our main character. It was difficult to find three animals to put together to make the character look cohesive. We needed to use linear perspective in our background, which I utilized to make the trees gradually disappear on the horizon line. I chose a mountain lion, turtle, and walrus hybrid to display the personality of my character. A mountain lion because they are very headstrong and don’t work with other animals, which helps show how individualistic Dianne is. A turtle because they are wise and often keep to themselves. I chose a walrus due to how ridiculously clumsy Dianne is. Her inability to coordinate her mind and body is something that leads to some major plot-points in the story. For the background, there is a strangely colored world that is reminiscent of our own. I chose this background because it is what I pictured the world that the purple woman took Dianne to as looking like. I gave her animal form a lab coat and glasses as well because that is what she wore in the story. I am really happy with how my picture turned out. I worked really hard on this piece and I think the final result reflects my effort.