Screaming Panda

Screenshot below is from the Pandasonic's new webpage. Pandasonic is an sound designing company based in Pori Finland. The designers Pinja and Tommi asked if I'd be interested on doing an illustration of a panda in the style on Munch's famous Scream painting for their page.

The collaboration started after Tommi saw in my portfolio the image of Screaming Tiger - painting I did for the Night of the Cats in Helsinki Zoo 2010. He told about the painting to Pinja to whom the Scream painting is very important. And she wanted the Screaming Panda to illustrate their upcoming webpage.

I started the work with sketching. Drawing pandas and trying to catch the scream expression so I could use it in the pandas face. Pinja also stated that she did not want the panda to look too anguished. The scream should look light and happy in spite of the original painting's feeling of agony.

I painted the picture with acrylic paints. I did the painting in fairly small scale so that it would be easy to scan to the computer later on.

Here is the final painting.

But after consulting with Pinja we decided that the panda would fit best the web page if cutted out from the background. That way it would not feel as isolated from the rest of the page. In the progress I also added some shades of light blue and yellow to the panda's white fur.

Which animal should I paint screaming next? ;)