The Fleas of De-Industrialization

figured it best i post before i put it off any longer.
this is an assignment that was due two weeks ago for my digital illustration course. the topic of the illustration focused on the De-Industrialization of America. talking with my friend, we thought that it was the assignment where we had to do a bit of digital work first and then print it out and continue to work on it with paint and then scan it back in for finishing touches...but i guess it wasn't. oh well, though because it worked out a bit easier doing it this way.
i sketched something up (the something being the two figures: a Northeast factory worker and a cowboy from the Southwest). scanned it. did line work in painter. printed it out on watercolor paper. watercolored over it. then scanned it back in.
to fix up the minor error i had when turning it in, i did the same process with a sketch of fleas and then layered it over a zoomed crop of the two figures and preceded to blur it to give motion.

i was originally going to focus on outsourcing as a major cause of the De-Industrialization of America, but had read in a wikipedia article that de-industrialization also occurred because of internal problems. mainly that factory workers from the midwest and northeast had migrated to the southwest and southeast for more jobs and for something more open and free, since this migration happened in the early part of the 20th century. so i decided to go with fleas moving from a Northeast factory worker to a Southwest cowboy because the cowboy looked healthier and brighter compared to the greyed, overworked factory worker. sunnier skies and more blood to the west.

i dunno why i'm explaining all of this. i think it's because it's what i'd probably say for a critique. explain myself = explain my process.