You Can't Push What You're Standing On

I jotted this sentence down in my quiet time and rediscovered it while I was going back through my notebooks. I really struggled to come up with an illustration. My first thought was trying to stop a vehicle or bulldozer by standing on its hood or blade and pushing at its body. But then I thought, "Well, I couldn't stop those even if I was on the ground." What I needed was an illustration that showed pushing as achievable, but futile in its results. I got the idea for a conveyor belt about half a day later. I guess the guy there could push the box, but he'd have to push it faster than the belt was moving. 

I did the drawing in Clip Studio. It's going to replace Sketchbook as my go-to for digital, but the learning curve is a lot steeper. I'm using the Frenden watercolor brushes for painting. There was a lot I wasn't super happy with, but I Jake Parker's Finished Not Perfect mantra and drew the line after about three hours of messing around with it. 

This was my first draft. I was shooting for a more cartoony look but it wasn't working for me.

This was take 2. I had my seven-year-old son push on a wall and I took his picture. Predictably, it looks like a seven-year-old kid pushing.

This was draft three. I used myself as a reference.

You may be surprised to find that I do all my lettering in PowerPoint. It's weird maybe, but the text tools are pretty powerful. Clip Studio actually is good at this, but I have yet to teach myself how to do it. One other little factoid: I drew the arrows on the conveyor belt in PowerPoint and used the transparency setting to help them blend in. I felt like the picture needed them to make sure the viewer understood what was going on. 

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