So in honor of Inauguration Day, I thought what better time to post the artwork that I’m posting today. Right after the election J&S Foods asked me to draw an “Obama” Hot Sauce label for them. Their request, “we want Obama riding a Donkey dressed as Uncle Sam with a map of the United States in the background.” So with that in mind I went to work and did just that. I decided to draw Obama a bit cartoony instead of realistic, so that it was different then the previous hot sauce label designs I had done for them. I mean hell…if you got a man riding on the back of a donkey dressed as Uncle Sam, might as well make it cartoony, right? Also, I wanted it to be more of a caricature of Obama rather than a portrait of him.
Below are both my initial rough concept sketch that I did as well as the pencil drawing that I did for the hot sauce label. As you can see in my pencil drawing, I followed my sketch pretty closely. I don’t always work this way with my hot sauce label designs, usually I will just go right into the computer and start composing the design there. However, because I decided to go with a caricature, I wanted to draw it out first to make sure I got it exactly the way that I wanted it before taking it into the computer.
From here I composed the rest of the design in the computer and colored the pencil drawing as it was drawn. In the background is the electoral map of the United States, colored as per which states voted for which candidate.
Above is the original version of the “Obama” Hot Sauce label that I did. After the client reviewed it they decided that they wanted to move the donkey’s hat and place it on Obama’s head. So after some tweaking and alterations, I came up with the design below which J&S Foods approved and accepted.
So there you go, the Hot Sauce changing taste buds one drop at a time.