There are a few colour studies that coincide with this partial final. I started the "final" very uninspired. I was not pleased with the way the image fit in with the other compositions. It just wasn't working. And as I worked, the more frustrated I became until I finally just stopped and chalked it up to grindwork.
I sat down again and worked until I came up with the finished piece further down in the blog. I was in such a stride with the other images. This one really stumped me and took the wind right out of my sails for awhile.
I do like the above image as a whole and I will probably revisit it as a larger work, maybe 18"x24", and let it be its own entity. I won't say that I gave up on it. I hate giving up. I merely decided to use it as a stepping stone to success.
This is an image that I felt gave me the effect I wanted while departing from using a main character from the story dominantly in the foreground or background. However,
something wasn't coalescing. I went ahead with the next steps anyway, hoping to get a final out of it, since I did like it.
This is one concept that I felt really captured the attitude of the Witch, but failed to evoke the sense of mystery and voyeurism I was looking for.
These are some thumbs exploring the basic value and compositional structure I was looking for.
Here is an in-progress image. Many of you may cringe, but for these particular images I am using a butcher paper substrate. Not archival at all but it is a fascinating surface. It gives me a soft effect and the tooth is interesting. It lends the images a sense of faerie that I really enjoy. A mistiness that conveys, for me, the idea of another world. Just like the compositional choices I have made convey a looking from one world to another. Sometimes a world of light into dark or vice versa.
Here's the colour study.
Here is the line drawing for the next illustration in the series.
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