Here are the references I gathered for the book cover
The first thing I gather are references for the cave drawing because it is going to be a prehistoric sort of drawing I dont need any real poses just a general idea of the things and what they look like so I just do google searches for the elements.
Just a general reference to the overall pose, wanted to basically see the position of the knees and feet
Grabbed this for the position of the arms
Grabbed this for the style and roughness of the cave drawing and the lines, ended up using less of the line quality and more of the color palette
DNA
The Sombrero Galaxy.
Astrological symbol for Virgo, which wasnt a part of the authors original sketch but I thought it would add a certain something.
The next thing I start collecting is references for rocks. Basically I am looking for a real jagged style of rock, with nice cuts and breaks. I am basically just thinking jagged. I got these from a mall as I was walking through I saw the rocks and started taking pictures of them.
Love these planes, you can see I use them in the rocky part near the character on the cover.
I also wanted to get an idea of how light interacts with the rock, how far away the light falls off, how the color degrades the further away. I also was not sure at this point what kind of light source he was using. I figured it was a torch but I thought it could also be a whiter light, so I grabbed a few of those references too.
For the torch references I used candles
I also wanted to get reference for the back cover in case she decided she wanted that done. The idea was that multiple people were walking into the cave and each holding a light.
The last reference I gather is the actual pose. I tend to pose myself more often then not when I dont need a face reference. I know what I see in my head as far as how I want the body to look, and I dont know if I could really communicate that to a model. Especially one that isnt getting payed.
I knew from my sketches how I wanted the body to basically be, but what was most important was how the light played off my back. Each of these poses were used for different parts of the final character.
This was utilized mostly for the hair light. This was not something I was going to use at first but after I had turned my digital piece in the author asked if I could give the guy long hair. So this was the reference I used most to get the idea of how the light would be hitting the side of my head.
This pose used for the left side of the body
This was for the hand on the wall and the shadow cast
Overall pose and basic lighting, I also liked the position of the fingers more in this one on the right hand.
This one I used for the color, I thought it felt most like what an open flame would be doing to a body and its color.
And this last pose for the lighting on the left shoulder and the triangle of spilled light on the trap.
