The Coward Inside: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Brandon Johnson (2018)

My story is about a boy who gets knocked out at school by a bully. He wakes up in a dark and scary forest where unbeknownst to him, a monster resides. This monster begins chasing the boy, and the boy gets cornered by a fallen tree. He has no choice but to face the monster. He faces it, but it runs away from him. Ultimately, the monster was the true coward. He wakes up and then stands up for himself against the bully, as a result of his new found courage.

The first step in creating my creature was sketching out where each body part would go. I needed linear perspective to show the depth of the background and how close or far certain objects were to the main focus of the piece. Some problems I encountered when making my initial layout was figuring out what my background should be for the piece, which ended up being a forest. To get the outline of the animals, I used the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator to trace them. I selected a crocodile, a turtle, a dog, and a cheetah to make my hybrid animal. My hybrid animals represents the character of the monster from my story. I used the crocodile and the cheetah to represent the side of the monster that hunts and kills. I used the Turtle shell and the dog paws to represent the side that’s not intimidating and cowardly. My character is leaping in the air as it looks over a purple forest with a river running through it. My character’s position in the piece represents the fact that it’s the one who presides over the forest. The purple that dominates the piece represents the fear that occupies the monster’s mind. Overall, I’m am pleased with my piece. The one thing I would do differently would be to add more detail to the background.