Graphic Animal

I choose to research the behavior, anatomy, and physical characteristics of bats. Before I committed to using a bat for this project I did a physical analysis and studied the bat through photographs from the Internet. I looked at many different photographs these photos offered a wide variety of viewpoints and behaviors, it also allowed me to see many different species of bats. To reduce my image I did a series of drawings, with each drawing I tried to concentrate and emphasize on essential qualities. These essential qualities for my graphic reduction were the bats wings and ears. I felt that taking the photograph down to its simplest form while preserving its ability to be recognized would have to include the wings and ears of the bat. I tried many different versions to refine my image while always emphasizing on the wings and ears of the bat. First I tried an outline of the bat traced in Adobe Illustrator, this was ok but lacking. So next I traced the outline of the bat and put in detail of his bones and body, this was too much. Next I drew the outline of the top of the bat’s wings and ears. This one came out nice, I liked it although I wanted more this was not exactly what I was looking for; so I tried many other different combinations to reduce this image. My last two attempts at the image reduction are my favorites. I traced the outline of the bat and colored it in black to make a silhouette, this image reduction is not an exact line for line trace. In this reduction I left out the feet and shortened the tail. I really like this one it is a perfect graphic reduction of the original image. The next image reduction that I really like is a silhouette of the original image, expect on this image the bones in the bats wings are left white. I like this image because it adds detail without taking anything away from the simplicity of the graphic reduction.