This is my first illustration for Break Away magazine. Break Away is a christian youth magazine and this story was about a group of youth missionaries that were held up at gun point by the most wanted thief in Africa. He and his cronies all wore African tribal masks to hide their identity which immediately made this image a fun one to work on. I was a little nervous that this image might be offensive when taken out of context.
Here is a sketchbook page where you can see some of my original concepts. The most obvious change from the original sketch is the machine gun. The art director also asked that the African Mask be made to look less menacing. I still kind of like the gun sketch better. I really wanted to paint a machine gun.
