This year is the second ever Northern Illustration Prize, a biennial competition hosted by The Northern School of Art and supported by The Ginnial Dickinson Trust. It is a competition based in Northern England for local illustrators and animators alike looking to branch out in the creative industry. There are 2 winning slots, one for Established and one for Emerging illustrators with the opportunity to win either a studio space in Hartlepool or a sum of money. 

This year the concept was MONKEY which I had a few different ideas for but ultimately wanted to show a few monkeys playing an arcade game. Originally the concept was that there would be 3 monkeys, one holding the other up to reach the controls and another hanging over top to see the screen. The different arcade machines I was looking at had tilted back screens that I thought the monkey playing might not be able to see entirely so the one on top would be helping direct them. As you can see however in the end I wanted to use a range of different monkeys so made the player a Capuchin as they are just the right size I think to play, as well as being quite angry in nature when seen through trafficking and labour. As well as Capuchin's being a more noticable breed as they are popular in movies and T.v such as in 2009's 'The Hangover' or the popular 90's show 'Friends'. 

Above are my original concepts (not in order) 
The third image shows my first mind map that is based way more around media and film rather than natural environments for monkeys, as when I think of a monkey I usually think of T.v thanks to shows like 'Friends', and movies such as 'Planet of the Apes' and 'The Hangover'. One of my favourite movies as a child is the 1997 movie 'Buddy', in brief its a lady that adopts a Gorilla, as she already has some chimps and other animals in her large mansion she has room for him and names him Buddy. He goes on to be very attached to her after the passing of his mother and grows up to be involved in peoples lives but ultimately is a wild animal. I suggest watching it if you've not already.

Second image in the sequence above shows some quick drawings of 2 of the main Ape's in 'Planet of The Apes' (1968), Dr. Zira, Dr. Zaius and Lucius. I decided against doing anything with those however as there is little room to show my own interpretations and inspirations through characters that already exist in its own world of lore. But the next page you can see I'm quickly laying foundations for the arcade idea that I end up moving forward with. 
The reason I chose the arcade machines is because I didn't grow up playing them as others did but have always loved the look of them and the feeling of playing them when I get the chance. You can see the idea started with a T.V set and a game console but I thought I could involve more monkey characters into the scene with an Arcade machine instead. 
In the first image you can now see where the arcade machines come in as I google some and pick out the ones I think would be best suited to some monkeys playing, assuming their minds are like children's and they don't know exactly how they work I wanted to use some simpler games with less controls leading me onto pac-man machines with their limited controls and simple concept. And finally I came up with 2 arcade games of my own shown on the next page and in the final image of the sequence, going with the banana as I would think the monkeys would be more interested in getting food than they would be getting another monkey! 

This project was a lot of fun and allowed me to experiment with drawing monkeys which is something I've not done regularly at all, I've probably drawn 5 monkeys in my whole life before this point hahaha. Maybe I'll draw some more since I love the little gang I made here in this project. 
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Here is the final submitted image that had crystallised and noise filters added to it for a bit of a vintage look as if they're in a dusty old arcade.