On The Fly

Fruit Fly

Kathryn at John Hopkins University Arts & Sciences magazine asked me to create a cover and interior illustrations for a major story on humanity's debt to the lowly fruit fly. The article explores how scientists use fruit flies in their research which could potentially help cure human disease.

It was requested that the cover image and interior spread should be related in both look and feel so I maintained the same scientific elements and took different views of the human character. One of the influences coming into play for the main image was Da Vinci's Vetruvian Man although it was scaled back so as not to be too obvious.

Fruit Fly

Fruit Fly


The colour palette evolved via experimentation during the working process. Once I had the combination of turquoise and olive green then everything else fell into place.
The finished illustrations were very well received and the magazine published on November 15th.

Fruit Fly sketch

These are the initial two approved sketches.

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