Phoenix New Times

I thought I'd offer up a look at the process behind my most recent project, for those interested.  I got a call from Phoenix New Times looking for a cover piece illustrating a local crime wherein an antique store owner had shot and killed a transient who had been in his store, for rather inexplicable reasons.  Because the story was just going public, and was being written while I was working on this, there weren't many details and descriptions for me to utilize.  So I set about mocking up some thumbnails, that would be more vague and less dependent on likeness and environment.  Here they are below...

I tend to color out my thumbnails, and toss title/design info on them as well, to help work out composition and layout.  They ended up choosing the first piece, from the gun man's perspective, and had me make a series of adjustments to the hand holding the gun, to seem less reflective and more active...

Next I started laying out the finalized pencils and a palette colors to work with for the foreground elements...

Here's a little progress on the hands and gun...

Next I focus on the figure in the background.  I had wanted him to be out of focus and ambiguous, leaving room for interpretation.  So, with a little push and pull in photoshop, I'm able to bury him under a murky layer of waxy haze....

Now it's just a matter of merging these elements together, along with some finer detail work, to arrive at the final...