Chocolate heart

A chocolate heart editorial medical illustration as we may or may not be approaching a birthday.. Animated in a loop because I couldn't decide if I preferred a bitten or pristine choccie. What a fun (and hunger-inducing) texture to research and paint! It has been a while since I incorporated food-like textures into my medical paintings, but there is something appealing in it (to me at least). Not in a Hannibal sort of way, but just that many medical textures are repulsive in a visceral way that can be distracting from what you are trying to communicate, e.g. blood, faeces, vomit, etc. Maybe nice food textures are easier on the eye, and often have more pleasant associations?

Below (middle) is a painting study based on two photographs of chocolate brownies to learn more about these delicious textures. On the lower-left is a comic panel showing a deep vein thrombosis with a jelly-like texture for the clot, and on the lower right is a medical illustration of a reversible cause of cardiac arrest (hypovolemia) where I’ve applied a jam/jelly texture again for blood, and chocolate for the diarrhoea on these those less-pleasant-in-reality materials.