Work in Progress: Dude, Squat & Mose #01

I've taken on a long-term project for a client that involves more than the usual illustration work. The story is called 'The Adventures of Dude, Squat and Mose,' telling a short story about three adopted stray dogs in Louisiana bayou country and their older care givers. The image here is the cover under painting.

Rather than focus only on the artwork for this project, I'm also taking on layout and design duties for the book. An intimidating prospect. While I have experience as a graphic designer, I'm going to be dealing with aspects of book production I haven't faced before and it's an exciting opportunity.

Since this is an entirely new experience, I decided to experiment also with a different method from my usual illustration process. Generally, after working out the sketch, I fill in areas with flat color–essentially treating the image like a big coloring book–and follow up with shading and detail.

This time, however, I plan on finalizing the values of each image with an under painting and then follow with color glazing. I've been wanting to try this out for quite some time and this project affords the perfect opportunity.

I plan on posting progress reports as the project develops, so watch this space.