Human Immunity Project Process

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The goal of this project is to create a series of educational materials for upper high school to college level students that aids in the learning and understanding of the human immune system. In this post, you will see some of my process in creating two posters, animations, and textbook spreads that use illustration as a learning aid.

The beginning stages of the project involved many hours of researching, thumbnailing, sketching, and concept work. The image above is the initial thumbnail for the first poster.

After all the research, thumbnails, concept sketches, and determining a direction for the project, it was finally time to start illustrating the different cells that would appear throughout the project. Starting with the T cell, I made a vector illustration in Adobe Illustrator, but decided that the look was too rigid and not suitable for the organic nature of a biologic illustration. I then moved to Adobe Photoshop where I could get a more organic look through digital painting.

One by one, I went through and painted all the cells I would need for the project. Above you can see how I took a sketch of a neutrophil and transferred it into the beginning stages of the final digital painting.

One important part of the first poster is a flowchart showing how all cells of the human immune system are derived from one basic cell type, the hematopoietic stem cell.

Another important section on the first poster was a visual discussion of the structures of important molecules. Although an antibody is commonly drawn as a Y shape, it really has a more complicated structure that lends itself to the way the molecule functions. The T cell receptor also has a common visual depiction convention that eliminates some of the detail necessary to understand how form of the molecule meets its function. These images were specifically designed to appear on the poster and later in the project as textbook illustrations.

The concept for the first poster is for it to be an illustrative scene of the cells in their environment. To have environment, you need to have a background; this is the background painting for the first poster.

After long hours of work, I finally got to this point where all of the elements are in place. Now the poster just needs fine tuning. To allow myself the best opportunity to make this poster really shine, I took a break from the painting and moved on from the first poster to the animation process.

Using frame animations in Adobe Photoshop, I created an animation showing how the diagram in the top left of the first poster can be applied to educational materials like apps and other interactive software. Below is the third draft of the animation, which will now go on to the final stages where the timing will be refined and minor errors will be cleaned up.