Thoburn Design & Illustration

So recently, a fellow designer and I were discussing how we often feel like trained graphical monkeys. Mashing the buttons on our keyboards while the zoo keeper hands us endless edits, and slips a little food down the tube in the wall. The comment was made that all we needed were “monkey bars” over our doors. After that long, uncomfortable pause I asked . . . monkey bars? Which they clarified. What they actually meant to say was “cage bars”, but it was too late . . . my mind had already formed the picture you see here.

But it’s only Wednesday! This is my first ever Illustration Friday project. In case you’re wondering Illustration Friday is a weekly illustration challenge. A topic is posted every Friday, then participants have all week to come up with their own interpretation. I set aside some time this week for the challenge. This is a slight departure for me, I expanded my color pallet a bit and added more detail to the subject (in this case our fearful-saurus). For other samples of my illustrations check out my gallery.

I sketched this idea out about seven years ago. When I finally got around to working on it, I discovered that the original sketch was lost somewhere between here and the other places I’ve moved since then. This is the “new and improved” version. I tweaked a few things and changed the armor, which was originally more Roman.

Do you know how to break in a book with gentleness and patience? I just wrapped up this assignment to (hopefully) protect a rather large book from the rigors of college life. The original is actually much larger with a lot more text. I pared this sample down to all the good parts!