British Television, Sherlock Holmes, & Mary

In illustration, we are now moving from basic caricature studies into creating actual illustrations around all that we've learned about our subjects.

It's been really awesome getting to know Mary. Growing up in Dallas, she was the captain of her color guard team with the marching band. She is the middle child with her younger sister being a youtube phenomenon (still fascinating to me). We share very similar music genres, jive'n to chill indie tunes and laughing at how similar Of Monsters and Men, Mumford and Sons, Avett Bros, and The Head and the Heart really are. She loves England, especially British television. And Sherlock, the newest one, is her latest and greatest passion and hobby.

Because Mary is so obsessed with all things Sherlock, I decided to build my final caricature illustration around all things British, Sherlock, and mysterious. But because I myself am very uneducated, I had to do a lot of initial research to get myself somewhat caught up to Mary's speed. I discovered that there are three basic genres you can place Mr. Holmes in:

The vintage:

The motion picture:

And the late and great television series:

Based on all of those findings, I began doing quick sketches to put Mary into that setting:

I also wanted to take Robert Downey Jr's trust sidekick and place him into the scene, which required some further research and sketching...

From there, based on those sketches and the library of reference photos I had gathered, I began developing a composition that would best adhere to Sherlock Holmes and Mary's personality:

For today, we were to have a tightly rendered composition that would catapult us into the final project that we'll work on over spring break. There are some changes to be made compositionally but I think this sketch will put me in a good position to get the most out of the caricature illustration: