New Angeles

I recently finished up a job for the July edition of the New Angeles Monthly. The story is about South Central and how the cops are cleaning up the streets and kicking out the homeless and the drug users. The story is told from the perspective of an ex heroin user who misses the realness of how it used to be. He also thinks the original inhabitants are being mistreated and that South Central belongs to the homeless. This is the rough sketch that I sent in for approval. The author of the story definately takes the side of the people who live in South Central so the cops developed into a more ominous presence. I liked the idea of have the cops using syringes to fumigate the city with money.



This is how the final turned out. I didn't realize how much was really going on in this illustration until I began painting it. Everything for awhile was screaming on the same level and it took a lot to create a clear hierarchy. The radioactive green helped to center the illustration around the cop while the rest of the piece was painted with more muted colors. The homeless at the bottom of the page or more of an afterthought rather than the main focus as they could have easily become.



Here is what the final layout looked like.