Fall 2023 Illustration, Design, Animation Capstone

Angelica Pena

For the purpose of my thesis project, I decided to revisit a continuation of a series I’ve been working on for a while called Insecurities. This project consists of self-portrait illustrations exploring my insecurities that I have struggled throughout the course of my life. This project has given me freedom to explore each insecurity and dramatize each illustration. Each one represents a different insecurity with facial expression and body language. In addition, each monochromatic color in the illustration is an addition to the emotion of each individual piece.

Insecurities collection details:

Tasty Habits

  • This illustration is focusing on my nail biting habits. I added a few hues of red to represent the flesh being damaged by the biting in a dramatized version.

Outer meat

  • This illustration uses the color green as a color of healing and acceptance. It’s my insecurity about my body image around my stomach. The color green creates a calm atmosphere paired with the image of soft gore.

Slithers of hair

  • This illustration emphasizes the color orange representing anxiety and my insecurity surrounding my hair. The orange color emulates the panic and caution my hair has created of what it should and shouldn’t look in a certain style.

Mind, Heart and Gut

  • This illustration represents my indecisiveness with daily decisions. Even though the color gray is a representation of uncertainty. I decided to go with the color purple. During my research, the color purple represents frustrations if its a darker hue. This particular project, I feel like it gives a light hearted message of indecisiveness to the project. Almost having pity for the figure.