Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the creation process for my illustration in L. Ron Hubbard Presents the Writers of the Future Volume XXVIII.

Step 1: Win the contest.

Step 2: Read the story and get inspired . . . in this case Lost Pine by Jacob A. Boyd.

Step 3: Generate concept ideas. (see previous post)

Step 3.2: Generate more ideas when the Art Director isn’t completely satisfied with your original ideas.

Thumbnail1  Thumbnail 2 

Step 4: Gather reference shots. (If I’m going to use a lot of detail from a reference, I make sure it’s in the public domain, or I photograph my own.)

Step 5: Character studies.

Space spider 1Space spider 2

Step 6: Composition sketches. (This is just one of the half dozen or so sketches I did. I hadn’t done a two-point perspective drawing since high school. It was fun trying to remember how it all worked. )

Step 7: Rough in the basic outline drawing.

Step 8: Add tone, texture and details.

Step 9: Scan the finished drawing.

Step 10: Tweak levels in Photoshop.

Steps 11: Fixes. (My original idea with the foreground didn’t work, so I extended the shading below the truck’s bumper, re-scanned the image, and then re-tweaked on Photoshop.)

Even after I added to the foreground, I still screwed up the dimensions and ended up cropping from either side. This is the image in the book. I think I prefer the un-cropped version. I can only blame myself. )