Michelle Crim is a senior here at SCAD Atlanta studying concept design for animation and games. However, her true career aspirations lay in illustration for publication, specifically doing illustrations for children’s books. This reflects on her unique, lineless yet animated style that relies on her meticulous rendering of fun and colorful shapes, which is a process that she has enjoyed since she was young. Crim would often spend countless hours rendering detailed subjects such as trees and leaves. While it can be quite a time consuming process for her to work this way, the satisfaction she gains from the final outcome always makes it worth it in the end. While Crim does most of her professional work digitally because it saves time, she frequently prioritizes traditional work to create 3D textures like glitter and thread.
This piece was illustrated as a style frame for a larger story created by Crim herself, featuring two of the characters in the plot, Abdul and the Illusion Witch. In the scene, Abdul is tricked by the Illusion Witch to wander into the forest by impersonating his mother. Once she shows her true identity to him, she casts a spell using black magic to make an ominous shadow loom over him. It is meant to represent the wickedness that the Illusion Witch hides under a glamorous front. Crim was able to do so successfully using a wonderful complementary color scheme that brings out the vibrancy of the hues in her piece.
Based on the classic story of the same title, Crim creates a whimsical piece that is not as friendly as it looks using her fun shape language and conscious line usage atop of earthly and warm tones that we associate with more cozy feelings.
Crim’s piece is based on the myth “Beowulf,” which is a story that she read in high school. Instead of illustrating a specific scene from the story, Crim decided to instead illustrate the overall elements of the whole tale in this one illustration. On the left is Beowulf, about to fight Grendel’s mother, whose clothing transitions into a swamp that traps Grendel. The burning mead hall, which is Beowulf’s purpose for the battle, sits in the background. The overall tones and subjects depicted in this specific illustration are more macabre than her body of work tends to be, but undoubtedly her unique art style claims it as hers, as a standout piece in her portfolio.
This illustration is a homage to the Chinese Zodiac of Crim’s birth year, which is the rabbit. She illustrates an elegant brown rabbit jumping on a log to avoid drowning in the race to depict the original tale of how the Chinese Zodiac animals ordered themselves. As rabbits are known for being gentle and kind animals, Crim chose to illustrate it with a warm and soft expression. She also included a yellow Hibiscus to represent luck.
Looking at Crim’s body of work, it is clear to see why she has invested her time into shaping her work for children’s publications. Crim loves to incorporate whimsical and playful elements into her work and it shines beautifully in the style that she works in. She also recalls how she found a lot of joy in these books when she was a kid herself, so she would love to create work that can ignite the same passion in other children.
“I want to not only transport [children] to another, more whimsical world, but encourage them to do the same for others in our own reality!”
Michelle Crim
You can check out more of Crim’s fun artwork on her Instagram, @mcdraws99.