Stuck Up- A Book Illustration Project for St Martin’s Griffin Press.
ABOUT
I was hired by St Martin’s Press to fabricate over 100 x-ray photos for an adult humor book. This publication highlighted certain objects that cause emergency room visits when they get either ingested or stuck inside the body through rectal insertion. When published, this book became viral, garnering mentions on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Huffington Post, CNN, and hit the #23 spot on the Amazon Best Sellers book list and was for sale in trendy shops like Urban Outfitters.
St Martin’s GriffIn Press:
Stuck Up! 100 Objects Ingested and Inserted in Places They Shouldn't Be.
DESIGN PROCESS
1) Photography
Using extensive and creative prop sourcing, the objects were located and a variety of photography techniques were used for capturing each object for layering into the final images.
2) Photoshop Manipulation
The objects were then carefully cut out from the background and were transitioned from original photo positives into negatives, then layered and transformed to merge into stock x-ray photos.
3) Research
The final images underwent consultations with both actual surgeons and x-ray camera technicians to insure the object placement represented true human anatomy and that the photos reflected accurately how x-ray sensors react to different materials.
CONCLUSION - FINAL PUBLISHED BOOK
The final paperback book was published by St Martin's Press and is available online.
Using 100 final images, it was a major undertaking, but allowed me to perfect my use of the pen tool in Photoshop and was quite an interesting project to be a part of. Though I started with photographing the objects on white paper, I learned that it was more realistic to shoot on a light table and changed my prop sourcing to involve searching for translucent versions of each object.