Below is the third of my step-by-step of the process in doing the “Haiku Ewe” comic illustrations that appeared on GoComics.com the week of July 20-24. This particular comic was there just one week ago today.
Today’s comic continues the week long theme of the lamb being in mortal danger, but unlike the other days, this one shows her escaping what would surely have been a death of starvation down in that pit. It was nice of the gophers to lend a hand – er, head – wasn’t it?
Well, below are the various stages that I took the time to scan with limited comments. If you’d like to see previous posts on this series, just CLICK HERE!
Here’s the rough pencil version drawn on tracing paper. I will later tape this to the back of watercolor paper and trace it through by using a light table.
Black Grape Prismacolor pencil for the final line once again, with various stages of lighter colors the further back you go to help create depth.
Here’s the final uncropped painting. You can see that I used an airbrush in the pit. This was to help evenly darken areas without losing the integrity of the brushed on paint underneath it. You can see on the left where I was holding it.
And here’s the final with Big Al’s haiku. That “pop up” text kept me thinking of gophers popping up to help the lamb. A friend said something about it in conversation that led me to have her using the gophers as a kind of ladder out of the pit.
Come back again tomorrow to see all the art leading up to Thursday’s final image.
