Avian Racing League

This is one one of the projects I took a week off to work on. What started out as just an idea of what an anthro avian flight suit might look like ended up evolving into a whole world building exercise and uplifting character introspection.

As it developed, I had several goals for this project. The illustration itself with the flight suit idea. (Based on a motorcycle riding suit, natch.) The design itself, based on the work of an influential design agency in the 90's, The Designer's Republic (tDR). And also just wanting to create something completely fresh and wonderful and uplifting to counter all the negativity that has been in the world lately.

I've got this crazy idea now to continue with these themes and ideas and expand it into an art book. Some sort of a positive exploration on what it means to be a bird, or maybe with different types of birds. Not sure if I'd continue the racing theme or not (I kind of ripped that off from Wipeout—the Playstation racing game series for which tDR did all the graphic design, and probably the work they're most well known for). But I think the overall positivity and design language I'd want to include are represented here.

The only downside is just—as always—finding time to work on such a project. This took quite a lot longer than I was expecting, partly due to just not having practice in it, and developing ideas, sometimes for hours at a time, only to not use any of them because they didn't work. I think if I continued to do more of this, it would certainly end up going faster. Not sure if it'll turn into something or not. But it at least was a really nice break from my usual work. So I hope you like it too. :>

Attached is a 300dpi version which is the print size, and the size the illustration was done at. And also a 600dpi size which makes the text easier to read.