This book cover is for a short story called The Whisperer by John Fulton.
I tweaked my illustration workflow again here by putting more energy into doing more studies. Each study focussing on one particular component of the illustration.
Here are the initial thumbnail sketches where I was playing around with various ideas:
A mountain terrain study:
A mountain light and colour study:
Figure studies:
Here’s the line drawing of the final idea:
Here’s the colour block-in, I always find it difficult to resist blending and getting too detailed at this stage but it keeps things more controlled if I finish blocking in completely first:
Half way through blending:
The final result: