New Illustration

This was a cover for the Phoenix New Times for the story "The Case Of The Two Abigails" by Paul Ruben. It involves two children named Abagail in the Phoenix area that died under suspicious circumstances. One was strangled with an electric cord in her crib, while the other was suffocated in her toy chest. Both were in their Father's care at the time. The first incident was found to be a freak accident. The other is still under investigation, but the Father is suspected of murder. Allegedly, he stuffed his own daughter in her toy chest after disturbing him during an intense session of Metroid.

Yes, she wanted the same level of attention he was giving some blinking lights on a screen and was killed for it.

The Art Director called for the shocking image of finding this girl in her toy chest.

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We went with number 3, but pushed it to the corner to leave more space for the Title, cover copy, and silhouette of a noose. The girl who was killed with the noose managed to pull an electrical cord through her crib bars and resembles the shadow in these roughs. We decided that the girl's face should be covered with a stuffed animal--a single lifeless eye staring out.

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The crib shadow seemed busy and didn't communicate what was going on quickly. It was decided a shadow of a baby actually hanging should be used (a little more sensational, but it certainly gets the point across).

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As I prepared for the illustration there was a whole slew of things that were created separately and combined later in Photoshop. I drew the Bugs and Tweety characters and created the patterns for the trunk in Illustrator. The silhouette was inked on a separate sheet of paper, also.

After I colored the drawing and combined all the elements, I created the floorboards in Illustrator and added some bruises and scratches on the girl.

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