Illustration Friday: Sweet

Illustration Friday: Every Friday a word is given on the website, IllustrationFriday.com. Artists and illustrators then submit an image that represents that word all during the week.
This week's word: SWEET

THOUGHT PROCESS:
Thinking of the word SWEET, I immediately thought of candy.
That made me think of popular characters related to candy. Willy Wonka, M&M's and the cartoon Adventure Time came to mind, but I wanted a contradiction to the word SWEET. Something sweet that wasn't being sweet.

This instantly made me think of the classic ending of the original Ghost Busters movie with the fantastic character: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

The sweet and lovable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man tapping the city into oblivion.

I originally thought of an image of Stay Puft fighting the Michelin Man (the famous tire company mascot) since they both looked very similar in size and shape. I was going to do a Godzilla-like side-by-side fight overshadowing a city . . . but while it might have been a good image - it didn't focus enough on the word SWEET.

Going back to the concept "sweet not being sweet", I instead decided to focus on just Stay Puft tap dancing like Shirley Temple -- and in doing so -- destroying the city behind him.

The original pencil sketch of the IF: SWEET concept

FOCUS:

I wanted to originally have a dramatic image looking up under the belly of Stay Puft, from the point of view of people being demolished below. But it was hard to convey that Stay Puft was being "sweet" and tap dancing from that angle. He would just look too menacing. So instead, I did a spotlight focus with Stay Puft tap dancing with his telephone pole "cane". Doing this makes a "sweeter" and cuter persona -- and eliminated seeing people being trampled on (which would be too dark for some people and make the cartoon less "funny".)

RE: Illustration Friday
If you would like to join in on the fun, head over to Illustration Friday. It's totally free, no need to login or sign up for anything. You can view all the submissions from this week (and past archives of previous words.) Have a sketch to show? Send your own artwork up for others to see.