Progress on "Burn The Ships" cover art

Working on the distribution of darks and lights. Mostly darks. It's a nighttime scene, don'tcha know...


The layout sketch continues to develop. Here, I have laid out the armature of the picture space, and I am mapping the critical points of interest, how they overlap, and how they direct the eye around the composition.

07/22/10
Testing the materials/process:
I get a lot of inspiration from the work of my favorite album-cover illustrator, Roger Dean.
After deciding to work in acrylic on watercolor paper, I'm testing out some of the basic ideas/elements and seeing if the techniques I have in mind will work.
I'm keeping the colors very neutral, so the few spots of saturated color will 'sing.' I'm working with a lot of the band's logo color, which is a kind of midnight blue. Ha, it should work great for a nighttime scene...lol

the test sheet.


Of course, we'll have to have an Ironwood Tree or two in the illustration. I love the lines of these gnarly trees.


Testing background trees and hills. I bought some artist's masking fluid from work, and you can see the tests on the left hand side.
Oh, and there should be lots of fog. Yeah, fog...


Close up of the smoke test.
I've been looking at photos, movies, and YouTube videos, to get the most dramatic, and the most authentic-looking smoke and fire.
Of course, the watercolor technique lends itself well to this application.