June 01, 2011

InsideCounsel Magazine

One of the many pleasures of freelance illustration is the chance it gives me to read up on subjects that might never cross my radar. In May I was commissioned by InsideCounsel Magazine to do an illustration for their Litigation section. My job was to give a visual shot in the arm to a story about shareholder initiated litigation during corporate mergers.

When I am working with subject matter that I don't have personal experience with, it is important to try to find a dramatic center that I can relate to. I wasn't going to get very far drawing upon my knowledge of corporate law, so I started to look for characters and conflict. The material boiled down to a struggle between a large entity and a group of smaller entities that are taking unfair advantage of the larger entity's weakness. (It's unusual to have a story that asks the reader to feel sympathy for the "big guy.") With this premise in hand, I was ready to hit the sketches.

And here they were:











 1. Hijacked by Lilliputians











2. Stealing from a Giant 











 3. When the Giants Aren't Looking











4. The Giant Pile of Money

And the final...












Thanks to Elizabeth Novak for the great assignment!

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