In looking back at the illustrations for the previous books I felt that I had a tendency to create claustrophobic spaces. I think I’ve always had this inclination, in all the various styles and applications of my artwork, to both fill up all the space with stuff and also to not vary the tonal range as much as I could, resulting in a flattening of space despite my best attempts at dynamic perspective in my compositions. I really had to force myself to keep the background of this image as light as it ended up. The compulsion to darken the outlines was nearly impossible to resist but I’m really glad I did. Can I do this more often in the future? I hope so.

Elliot enters a cave to find that all the underworld creatures have been frozen…

The challenge with this one was to create multiple levels of space for depth and also to have all the creatures appear frozen without the poses and composition looking stiff. I fussed with the lighting and the opacity of the linework on the various layers endlessly.

Here is the second sneak at the second book in  Jennifer Nielsen’s Elliot series. This one features the same demon that features prominently on the cover. For this picture I took some inspiration from some of my favorite old sci-fi and sword & sorcery illustrators and cartoonists, such as Frazetta and Wally Wood.  I lost some of the motion and drama that was in my first sketch (which I’ll post tomorrow), but it still looks pretty good I think.