In 2021 the Brood X Periodic Cicadas emerged in large numbers all over the mid-Atlantic. I was hearing a lot of misconceptions from friends and acquaintances, so based on new research and my experiences from 17 years ago – the last time they emerged in these numbers – I went back to my science communication days to sketch out these informational cartoons for my social media feeds.
The panels were optimized for Instagram.
Trillia is a mermaid character I’ve been developing for younger readers. She is questing for ancient artifacts in order to save her village and her family. These three images were part of an art challenge to tell a simple, self contained story about discovering the “silver lining” to one’s troubles in just three scenes.
Over the course of 77 separate panels, Trillia the mermaid goes on a quest to save her village from a dangerous blight.
This story was created during the Journey Through June Instagram challenge, to create an entire new story out of thumbnail images in one month using prompts based on the classic “Hero’s Journey” structure. The sketches were deliberately kept rough to meet the hectic pace of daily posting, and were accompanied by only brief captions.
This animated video and accompanying comic book explained the fundamental concepts of infrared astronomy to be studied by the James Webb Space Telescope.
I was involved in nearly all aspects of this project, from collaborating on the initial script outlines and storyboards to animation to design of the printed comic book, which was distributed at outreach and education events.
Roles:
Project management • Storyboarding • Illustration • Animation •
Video editing • Web design • Print design
Software used:
Produced while employed at Space Telescope Science Institute, under contract to NASA.