Nothing like a good blogging - book launch

The book launch for Spirit Shear went off without a hitch and had an amazing turnout. 

Thank you to everyone who attended and also made donations to Book Aid International. We've already raised almost £150 thanks to sales on opening night, donations and silent auction bids. Remember, you can still buy Spirit Shear online and a percentage of all profits go to charity.

One of the silent auction items was an original drawing for the book. It was a scene from Spirit Shear that didn't quite make the cut for getting into the book. But, I'd been wanting to do a finished pencil drawing for ages. I'm super pleased with how it turned out and even more pleased that it found a good home at the auction.

I've spent the last week and a bit recovering from the excitement of the book launch, filling out my citizenship UK application and slowly getting back into my routine. I now need to start working on promoting the book more and a big part of that is doing this, blogging about my work. So, here for your enjoyment is a colour digital painting version of the drawing. 

First, I created a hand inked version using tracing paper and a lightbox (mm... fancy lightbox).

Next I scanned in the line drawing. Using photoshop I added colour to create the final product. I'm getting better at using my drawing tablet but am still quite handy with a mouse when it comes to photoshop digital painting. So I still create individual layers for painting in individual parts. 

What do you think? Doing this drawing reminded me of the many comic book covers I adore that made me want to become an illustrator in the first place. I think my next side project will be doing alternate, comic book style covers for books one and two.

Hope you enjoy!
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