French Phase 7 Collection Cover: Part 2

Okay, here is part two of the illustration process for creating a cover for my upcoming collection of comics, which is being published (in FRENCH!) by L'employé du Moi.

Last week we saw my rough draft, and we heard the suggestion that I should add some more detail to the image. So the first thing I did was sketch out a thumbnail of the old rough dratft, and then I tried to loosely shift around the "camera" angle so that more of the scene shop was visible behind the figure.

Once I had created more space, I needed to figure out what to PUT in that space! Luckily, this is an autobiographical drawing, and I had some reference photos of the scene shop this illustration depicts. Here is one from 2002, though it was taken from the other side of the room (you can see me on the floor with my blue ear guards, and Bob is welding about where the figure is in the drawing).

After messing around with this for quite a while I ended up with the following finished drawing:

 

This was so complex, that I ended up drawing it in sections. First I drew the figure, with the table and inked it. Then I drew the welder and some of the background support columns and inked them. Then I started filling in the deep background with more detail. One tool that made this a lot easier was my new lightbox!

 

With the drawing all figured out, I next set out to color this drawing! I'll post the finished version next week. Thanks for checking in!