Breakdown of an Illustration

I thought I’d write a little about how I would go through the process of illustrating an image in a step by step way including some of the rough work concepts and developmental sketches.

The following artwork is for a self initiated project to draw the cover artwork for Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.  First up is my initial idea, rendered in pencil the rough shows the basic composition of the cover, back cover on the left hand side and front on the right.  My idea for the cover was to create a montage of imagery of Darwin and some of the subjects associated with his theory laid down in his book, The HMS Beagle, Finches, Darwin’s study and the Galapagos tortoise.

This concept was sketched down to quickly capture down on paper my montage idea It includes a youthful and older versions of Darwin.

Above I've further developed the image giving it more detail in an effort to see how more finished looking elements work together.  I've added in some stylized waves swirling around the main montage.

 Added clouds in around the edges to fill in the space. These can be knocked back in the final art so not to interfere with the type.

Here colour is added, I wanted to do the final in hues of blue, my choice of blue to use needs further thought.

Here I’ve done a more finished image of the central composition of the illustration.  This is done in pen and ink and I’ve shaded it in a cross hatched way to see how it might look as a variation.  I’ve also added the “Darwin’s Finches” in a way to highlight the changes in their beaks.

The older Darwin here, illustrated in a simpler style without cross hatch shading, as the colour I will add will add the shading I need.  I wanted to develop his likeness more and have singled him out in order to work on his features more.

The finished image, I’ve drawn all the elements separately and added them together in a layered file so I can move them around and change colours more easily.  

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