I have mentioned a few times recently that I was going to start a rather ambitious project. Above, you will find the first step. A little background first…this illustration has been in the works for some years now. When I returned to doing artwork, one of my inspirations was the Pixorama city illustrations of Eboy. While I saw myself doing illustrations like this in the future, my skills were not at that level yet. When I became more comfortable with my artistic abilities, I pushed forward with my Chicago 2010 illustration. While I greatly admire the work of Eboy, I went out of my way to create a city illustration that was unlike Eboy. I avoided the pixels. I avoided the isometric view. I avoided the structured look.

In some ways, I have come full circle. First, let me say that this work is inspired by Eboy but it will certainly be a Joe Mills original. I have seen many isometric city landscapes over the years, so I believe my illustration fits into that category of work. The theme of the work is Summer in Chicago. Since I had already done an illustration of the famous landmarks and icons in Chicago, I wanted to take a different direction this time. I would guess that folks outside of Chicago will focus on our cold and snowy winters in order to explain our climate. It is too bad…I believe there is almost no better place to be in the summer than Chicago. This illustration looks to capture that. As expected, I do include a lot of the landmarks and icons that I associate with summer in Chicago. One thing that is very different with this work as opposed to my other drawings is people…lots of people. Since I do not do much character illustration, I believe one of the reasons I waited so long to do this work is that I knew it could not be done without people. I have tried to find a way to draw people as simple as possible while still making them an important and dynamic part of the illustration. Finally, I found drawing isometrically more difficult that it looks. Since isometric drawings normally look “off”, it was hard to keep with that method when you are used to drawings items in perspective. Luckily, it is something I can correct easily with Illustrator. Time to get that started…

I completed this illustration late last year and it was recently approved by the client. I am certainly relieved because it was a very fun project to work on and it is some of my best work. I was commissioned by Nestle Peters to create an ice cream factory mural for their reception desk in Australia. It needed to have a similar feel to The Breakfast Machine and highlight the main ice cream treats featured in the Nestle product line. One of the main reasons I liked the finished product is the new direction it sent my work. At the time, my factory illustrations followed a certain perspective. I tried applying that style to this illustration and it did not feel right. So, I decided to really exaggerate and warp the machines in the factory. It was the right decision. It gives the whole illustration a much more whimsical feel and freed me to do future factories in a variety of styles. I’m proud to include this piece in my portfolio.

To see larger images of this work, click here.

It is always interesting to me where each project leads me. At the beginning of this illustration, I focused on doing a smaller factory or machine. Since much of my work uses multiple elements, I wanted to see if I could do something with less elements yet still make it visually interesting. Plus, I wanted to continue to use symbols and create depth without using gradients. I decided to make a street vendor machine. I’ve been wanting to use a street vendor for many years and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was pleased with the drawing but like so many of my previous illustrations, I was once again confronted with the color palette. I have really forced myself to learn color so it is not second nature to me at this point. I decided I wanted a reduced color palette, but I wanted to make sure the food still retained a color that we see every day. For example, the tomatoes needed to be red. In search of the right colors, I decided to try something a little different. I took my color inspiration from an already existing item and applied it to my illustration. Here is the inspiration for my color palette:

I had seen a great article about color inspiration and the author suggested comic books. After perusing some comic book images online, I liked the relatively limited palette of this Silver Surfer comic. Plus, it had all of the colors I was looking for. I plan on utilizing this technique in the future.

After believing the work was finished, I ran into some work that used textures and I started to rethink my final illustration. I’ve used textures in the past but I feel like it can seem like texture for the sake of texture. It can really create some amazing effects, but it needs to be used in the right way. I used it rather subtly so the colors still popped and the artwork didn’t get overpowered by the texture.

Now…I’m on to my ambitious Chicago cityscape…