The World is Yours - Colored Pencil Drawing

"The World is Yours" Colored Pencil
It's a mysterious scene. A man and a woman on a secluded, tropical beach. Turquoise blue water and a clear blue sky serve as a backdrop. Something dramatic is happening. The woman is desperately clutching his leg as if pleading "Please don't go!" We see only the man's back. His attention seems focused on the oil rig platform out in the distance. Why is he clutching a black pistol? It looks like something out of a romance novel. That's because it is! I finished the cover for Tye DiPirro's new book The World is Yours.

I'm not exactly sure what the story is about but Tye gave me a description of how he wanted the cover to look. I don't have much experience with book illustration so my strategy was to have everything worked out before I started on the final drawing. I gathered lots of reference material and made several line and color studies. By spending the majority of time on preliminary work I was able to complete the illustration very quickly. To finish up, I scanned the piece, cropped and resized it, and added some text.

I tried to evoke some mystery through the colors and shadowing using my natural drawing style. It's a little bit simplistic and abstract and probably not as dramatic and modern as what you will see on the market but Tye seemed pleased. He has the story written and now he has an image to go with it. I'm very curious to find out what happens next. I know he has explored some of the different avenues for getting it published so hopefully things will happen for him. It was good to try something different and I'm glad I did it.
Final illustration

Preliminary value and color studies

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 26, 2013 at 12:01 PM

    Beautiful Work, Did you find out what the book was about?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dan MillerMarch 26, 2013 at 9:13 PM

      Thank you,

      I did not find out exactly what the book is about, it's kind of mysterious. I know Tye is currently working on getting it published.

      Delete

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