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| Lee Partridge, San Diego's CIO of Retirement Fund for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
Art Director, SooJin Buzelli for Asset International's ai5000.
When the assignment to illustrate a portrait of Lee Partridge came in, I already knew the story. Lee Partridge is San Diego's newest Chief Investment officer for the cities underwater retirement fund, and he has a very complicated path ahead of him.
The article was not compete at the time of the assignment and the photo reference was super tiny and low res - so my first round of ideas danced around the idea of a straight up portrait and revolved around symbols of San Diego and business icons instead.
Art Director, SooJin Buzelli gave me "navigating a minefield" as the lynchpin to solving this problem. And upon review of the first batch of thumbnails, reminded me she wanted a portrait, not a complex scene. She also sent me a nice big fresh pile of hi-res photos to work from. Yes!
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| thumbnails for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
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| Pencil sketches for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
Using the sea mines symbols, and the waves that represent San Diego (and the condition of the retirement fund) from the first round of thumbnails, I quickly sketched a few portraits of Lee Partridge and sent them to SooJin.
A sketch was selected within minutes and I began working on developing the illustration right away.
The assignment was for a full page illustration, and I like to draw things pretty large. The sketch was done in non- repro blue pencil and inked on 11" x 14" Strathmore paper. Even though I sketched the the whole scene in one piece, I decided to ink the portrait and the sea mines separately. That way I could have a little wiggle room when it came time for final cropping.
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Sea Mines ink detail for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
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| Lee Partridge ink detail for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
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| Original inking for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith |
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