Corey's Commission... the process, Part 1

My good friend Corey Dalton, author of middle-grade novel Tilly McGwinn, is working on a new youth fiction novel and I've begun the first of hopefully a few illustrations for the story. There's no title yet, but the plot is loosely this: The main character, Hap (short for Happy), accidentally winds up in another world, and teams up with other characters from famous fairy tales- Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Wonderland, and Peter Pan. They for a super-hero group to fight evil. That's all I'm going to give you right now, as the novel is still in production and it's a secret!I'll be posting more pictures as the drawing comes along, so for now I'll take you all through the design process.

First, we have my initial character concepts from Corey's descriptions. They end up a lot different from these, but this is where I started. A little too realistic looking for the fel of the story, and they originally were going to have matching costumes:


Next came revised head-shots of the characters, with a little more youthful style, and the change to their traditional outfits:


Once the head-shots were approved, I worked them into full poses. These I create to communicate the personality of the characters. Alice is prim, proper and a impatient, Hap is a little reserved but genuine, Peter an overconfident wild child, and Dorothy a young, sweet and darling:


I made an unsuccessful attempt at a final on Bristol Board. I got most of Alice worked on, but the soft pastels don't easily retain their opacity when smeared on bristol, and the drawing was just too small to really get good detail. Today I sketched out a new final drawing on Rives BFK printmaking paper at a larger scale, with a few changes to Dorothy and Peter's poses. This the right surface and size for the style I want to achieve.


Stay tuned for my next post as I work in the colors! Happy New Year everyone!