Pirate Treasure

Here’s a quick walk-through the process of my latest piece, Pirate Treasure. I’m really excited because I think I’m coming close to nailing down a consistent process that works for me.

The process always begins with a rough thumbnail. Sometimes I print out little boxes in the correct proportions of the final piece for my thumbnails, and sometimes I just eyeball a rectangle. In this case, I eyeballed it and my proportions were way off . The final piece (intended to be a picture book spread) was much wider and I had to digitally edit my thumbnail.

Here is the rough sketch with blocky stick figures to denote where the characters will go. I added my print guidelines and some Lorem ipsum text at this stage. Even though this piece isn’t being printed in a book, I wanted the practice setting it up for print. Placing the text early allows me to design my image around the text, instead of trying to awkwardly cram the text in at the end.

A quick value study, to make sure I keep all the important story-telling elements visible.

In the refined sketch, I ended up moving the pirate out of the corner of the image and back to the group. The group was missing a confused facial expression, which I felt was necessary to communicate the story. When he was separated from the group, he was competing with the group for spotlight.

The past couple of months, I have been alternating between digital and traditional pencil line art. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. However, I think I’m leaning towards pencil line art. I like the textures I can create with pencil, that I can’t quite replicate digitally. I really wanted to do pencil work for this piece, but I thought the pencil drawing needed to be equal to the print size or large. (In this case, 22” wide or more.) That’s enormous! There’s no way I could do a drawing that big.

However, I spoke with an experienced artist and asked about this predicament. I’m glad I asked, because he gave such a simple answer that completely solves the problem! You don’t necessarily have to draw at print size or larger, as long as you scan in a high=enough resolution. Instead, you should draw at a size that is comfortable for you, and preferably a common frame size, so you can sell the original drawing. That was a major “oh, of course! duh!” moment for me. I’m excited, because it means I’m not limited like I previously thought I was. My next pieces will definitely all be in pencil.

Painting in the background, layering out the major elements.

In my next piece, I’d like to really focus on depth in my lighting. I think I could push it even further.

At the very end, I painted opaquely on top of all my layers to add the remaining details. Here’s the final piece. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this process walk-through!

Process: Treasure off the Coast