The idea was pretty straight forward. I was to work with the good people at Leo Burnett Ltd. on a campaign for the government called helping hands. The image was four people interlocking hands/ arms.

As with most of these things a committee of people were involved in the decision making which meant that before I could properly get involved they had to thrash out exactly who, how old, what gender and the ethnicity of each individual person. I was initially thinking I would just photograph myself and a couple of friends to get the reference but as the idea for each of these people became more complex it was clear to me that I couldn’t do this alone.

I approached Leo Burnett with my concerns and they were fortunately able to search through their many staff members and find people who were close to specific reference required.

A photo shoot was then set up which I attended to make sure we got exactly what I needed in terms of reference. It was my first time in a professional studio and I found the process very interesting. The shoot turned out great and I had all the reference I needed with only very minor tweaks to the photographs.

I wasn’t much looking forward to painting the actual image as hands can be a real pain to get right. They were difficult but I actually enjoyed the discipline of having to get the skin tones, freckles and hair all spot on using this very detailed photograph in what was for me, quite a large painting. I was really pleased with how the illustration came out and I think this is an interesting image.

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