Self Image in Advertising

My father came to me a few days ago, asking me to help him out with creating some promotional materials for a new natural Dietary Supplement/Food Source that he is distributing.

He and my sister are trying it out and are hoping that it will help me too.

The original concept for the drawing had been brought to me in a cartoon that was clearly "dated" from some time in the 80's and my challenge was to update it, and make it more appealing to today's woman.
A picture tells a thousand words and that was what my father wanted this picture to do for his promo materials.

When creating this artwork, I had to face the fact that I look much more like the girl on the left than the one in the mirror, and while I was working on this piece, I gave a lot of thought and consideration to how self-image is used in advertising.

I felt that the original illustration given to me as a reference material was a bit condescending and sexist, so I tried to be as honest in my illustration as I could be. I asked myself to evaluate how the image I was creating would make me feel if someone handed me this ad. Would it make me thoughtful? or offended. Would it cause me to feel a bit of interest? or turn me right off.

One of the hardest things to do is to realise that as much as we nurture our creative soul, we must nurture our physical body and take care of it so that it can continue to contain our soul and keep us in the world as long as possible to inspire others.

(I created this art in Photoshop CS2, on my Wacom Intuos3 Tablet)