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These illustrations were done to accompany the article “The Pencil Test,” written by Sofia Resnick for PaperDolls magazine. The pencil test is an urban myth which determines if a girl's breasts are perky or saggy. The article's objective was to debunk the test.

My inspiration for the artwork came from an article by Scott McCloud where he writes that the more iconic the representation of a character looks (i.e. a silhouette vs a photo of a person), the easier it is for a greater majority of people to identify with.

With this idea in mind, I decided to depict the characters in the illustrations more like mass-produced dolls (akin to the Barbies most girls grew up with), which look unblemished, identical and ultimately unremarkable. The only difference between the dolls is their breasts, evoking the idea that a person's “flaws” are what make them unique and ultimately beautiful.