HANA MENDEL
Concept sketches
Process: When I was emailed this piece, my instinct was to ask how I had been pigeon-holed into bathroom-themed fiction (re: Listening for the Click). The story centers around some rodent-themed moments. I sketched a few options from scenes that stood out, and the team preferred the plunger best.
Many hours were spent researching how to acquire a convincing rat tail (including, but not limited to taxidermy and preserved lab specimens.. which I learned are not shipped residentially, which is a good thing). Luckily, there was a man deep in Etsy committed to the art of realistic faux rat-making. I chose two color options, titled “Brown“ and “Plague”.
I took the image of the plunger, printed it, and placed it on a pizza box with a hole ripped in the center. I did this so that when the print laid flat on the box, the rat could be placed beneath the box and the tail could be fed through the hole in the box, through the slice made in the print. Thus, the print was still laying flat when rephotographed for the final visual.