Surfing from the Desk

Here's another piece that's been on my desk this past week. It's the pencil sketch for a kids story about windsurfing.

I originally had both of his hands on the boom to control the sail (safety first, of course) but was asked to take one of his hands off to make the piece look a bit more action oriented and daring. Of course, that made his body twist a bit but a few quick erases and a tweak here and there and I was back in business.

The only other thing that will change about this piece is that, when my art director plopped this sketch into the cover template, she flopped the piece so the character is now looking right instead of left. For any of you out there who do any kind of art and have put your drawings in front of a mirror you'll know that every little mistake you've made will magnify itself when you look at its reflection. When I saw her design it didn't look too bad but I think I'd rather play it safe then sorry when doing the inks for the finished piece.

Chances are I'll simply flip the piece over and trace on the back of the paper and then ink from that. That way any little mistakes I've made will still be hard to see. Sneaky sneaky!

OK, back to it. Have a great Thursday!