I’ve finally gotten a client who didn’t have a non-disclosure agreement. However, I think his story is great and very sellable, so I won’t talk about it publicly. I will however talk about my process.

So first, I was mistaken about the target age group and presented him with this rough sketch:

The Client let me know that it was WAY too young. I had missed the mark. He was great about giving me a better description of what he envisioned, and so I produced this rough which he was pleased with:

As you can see the characters are for a much older audience. I also cleaned up the text using Illustrator. I didn’t want a freehand look to the words, but more of a blockish poster look. From here I took it to color. I generally work dark to light, dropping in the overall shadow color and texture first.

I put in the base colors first, and then layer, layer, layer. And then I add more layers. Once I get it to a point that I like and feel ok committing to, I’ll consolidate my layers so that my file isn’t ginormous, but all the initial layering of thin opacities help create a more painterly feel.

At this point it’s starting to take shape, but it’s in it’s midway stage. And here, is the final, which hopefully the client will be pleased with: