I chose to make chocolate truffles for my recipe, which turned out much better after my initial test attempt. After doing more research about the recipe, I discovered that I should add less double cream when using milk chocolate due to the milk already contained in it. The resulting truffles tasted much nicer thanks to this.

​My first thumbnail idea was to create one long illustration that flows down the page. In this design I wanted to keep things simple with just the basic overview of the recipe rather than each individual step to create the final product.

I had the idea to illustrate thermometers and clocks in order to indicate temperatures ad time. In this case, the thermometer is used to indicate putting the mixture in the fridge so it can set. Within the recipe that I chose, the only thing that has a specific timing would be the double cream which I will expend upon in later designs and concepts.

I experimented with gouache to work on possibilities of producing my outcome such as the style and colour scheme.

​My second initial thumbnail idea was to create a more comic style by including individual panels that illustrated each step of the process. I think that this way I am able to include more detailed steps that present the reader with a more accurate recipe. 

Like the previous idea, I wanted to illustrate different indicators, such as an exclamation mark so show that it should only be heated until before it is at boiling point and not higher. I think that this is a difficult step to illustrate in an obvious way but I will continue to experiment in varied ways. Furthermore, including the spoon and arrow to indicate mixing can be a simple but effective addition.

By using panels, I think it allows a clearer flow to the illustrations and demonstrates the recipe more clearly than my first concept.

Starting from the very beginning, I wanted to focus of the main items that included the ingredients and the utensils used for the recipe. I began by drawing out the basic shape and silhouette of each product along the top and then started experimenting with different possible ways of illustrating them in a way that was simple yet still recognisable. I used small indicators to show the amount of each product needed.

From my initial ideas, I wanted to simplify each step as much as possible so that I can focus on the most important aspects of the recipe and decide what is important to include and what isn't.

An alternate style idea was to have a more sketchy feel to the piece by using marker pens, leaving negative space and creating texture with the marks.

I mocked up a design for my final outcome by combining the favourite of my previous pen sketches and incorporating them in. I decided to outline everything using a fineliner as I liked the effect it gave to my sketches. For the background, I think keeping it a block colour would work best as it keeps the focus on the recipe.

I traced my design on to some smooth, thicker paper and outlined the design with a 0.8 fineliner. I then went on to use watercolour markers to add colour in a loose style so as to include the marks made by the pen and create a sketchy style. Despite initially liking this idea the most when experimenting with it in my sketchbook, I felt that using this style for the whole illustration seemed too low-effort and wasn't as visually interesting as I had hoped it would be. The white of the negative space felt too harsh in contrast to the rest of the piece, making it difficult to take in everything when viewing and just not particularly appealing to look at.

After not liking how my initial test came out, I decided to paint over it in gouache in the original style I used for my thumbnails. I think that this works much better than the former as is closer to the way I would normally approach painting something. While in person the yellow background is a nice cream colour, when scanned in it doesn't fit well with the many yellow toned colours in the rest of the piece. I digitally edited the background colour to find one that would be more suitable and decided on a pink background as it is complimentary and not clashing with the general colour scheme.

 In order to make my illustration more clear, I digitally added a thicker outline to around the whole design. I think that this helps make everything more cohesive and easier to make out.

While I do like the more textured outcome that I got by using the markers, I think that this version is more ell fitting to the project and allows for a better execution. Despite this I think that I can still add more texture using the gouache by leaving more visible brush strokes and not blending things too much.

Next I wanted to focus on the layout of the illustration as the one I was currently working with felt empty with the excessive empty space around the illustration that left it feeling too plain and boring. I decided to experiment with different compositions of the same elements by digitally editing quick thumbnails together which are shown below.

I enlarged certain elements to fill the space and moved them into more dynamic positions. There was still a lot of space left at this stage so the objects would have to be moved around more.

There was a very visible gap that was left on the middle right of the piece so I experimented with moving the biscuit packet into it and resulted in being an ideal placement. By having the packet here, it added movement as the biscuits could now flow down the page and feel less static.

I felt that in the previous designs, the salt was too big in comparison to everything else so I made that smaller and changed the direction of the pan pouring the cream to make up for the empty space it created. This then allowed me to more the butter further up and change it to a less drastic angle. I also split the chocolate up as they felt too clustered together.

By having the biscuits and nut pieces now falling more dynamically, the lower portion of the page was beginning to feel more overcrowded and hectic so I made it more organised by only keeping the necessary items and cleared space in the middle.

A difficulty I faced was trying to convey leaving the mixture in the fridge to set. My initial ideas were to have a thermometer and to illustrate ice to illustrate cooling but the ice aspect wasn't visually clear and didn't fit with the current layouts as the jagged lines were too dynamic and clashed with its surroundings. My other ideas were to include snowflakes as they are commonly used when conveying something is cold or to physically include the fridge that the mixture was to be store in. I decided that the snowflakes were better suited.

​The slight change in positioning with having the top and bottom of the page slightly cut off came through the happy accident of my printing outputting it incorrectly. Although it being a mistake, I actually preferred this as it was more fitting since all the other items were already half excluded out of frame.

I used gouache, but had trouble with it this time around. Due to not having a base layer from the watercolour markers, the gouache didn't take to the paper too well since it wasn't intended to be used with water-based mediums. I persisted, using thin layer that I could build up to create the opaque colours I wanted which was more time consuming than my test piece. This issue also cause blending to be more difficult but allowed for interesting mark making. 

Furthermore, by not having an ink outline already underneath the gouache layer, the fineliner didn't take too well to the paint which resulted in scratchy marks as well as barely visible ones. Since I was planning on creating a thicker outline digitally anyway, I decided it would be more productive to just reline everything digitally after scanning it.

​I completed the rest digitally, relining everything so that the lines were smoother and more clear as well as adding the thicker outer boarder to the components of the piece. I also cleaned up some of the inconsistent patches of colour I got from the gouache being too watery in addition to adding some further shading that I think helps add more depth to the piece, further improving the consistency throughout the piece as the mixture was heavily shaded in comparison.

Throughout the process of rearranging my layout, I felt like the top half was too empty to balance well with the lower half but couldn't work out a composition I thought would fit. Despite this, when putting together the final piece I realised that I hadn't included a spoon anywhere despite it being used in the recipe and resulted in it being the perfect item to complete the layout.

​Here is my completed final piece. I brightened up the different sections of the illustration individually by editing the saturation and brightness digitally. I think that this helps stop the different colours from getting lost amongst the others.

​Overall in spite of the issues I think that the illustration turned out well and does capture my personality within as it contains vivid colours and has a hectic quality to it.

In addition to lightening the colours, I also added the salt falling into the mixture as it was something I missed from my initial sketch.