This is the final version for the Black Gryphon Cover, at least until my professor takes a look at it. The black feathers at the bottom were reintroduced because there was a confusion as to what the white shape were without the black shapes for comparison. They were worked on and more defining done over the entire piece. Color was added to the eyes and beak to help it not look like a black and white piece. This was done with an overlay layer. In the little time tomorrow, since it's Father's Day, I plan on drawing out the Dreaming Void piece and setting everything up for the Halo piece digitally.

More work was done on the Gryphon cover this morning. More defining of the edges and details added to the face. I increased the area of the wings, removing the odd double feathers. I had used them because they were present on some reference pictures, but they don't feel right on this. I've hidden the black feathers at the bottom because I'm not sure if they are needed. It feels a bit unbalanced with them.
I won't be posting anything else today until I call my professor and we talk about the blog and what I've been posting. I might start on the Dark Void under-drawings after that, since it will be done in acrylic.

Now it's on to the fun job of completing the final versions. I'll just continue the cycle I've already got in motion. The first cover I'm finalizing is the Black Gryphon. I decided that I want to use the version where the gryphon is swooping down. I created a bigger document because I plan on printing all these out on 11 x 17 when I'm done. I shrank the gryphon so that more of the wings are visible. More work was done on cleaning up the edges and defining the face. The ears shrank too.
The addition of the feathers is a last minuet idea. It just came to me. I thought it would be neat to have some white feathers contrasting the complete blackness of the upper region. I added some black feathers in the lower region as well to help balance it out. The funny thing about the addition of the white feathers is that they are actually foreshadows of the end of the book when the black gryphon ends up becoming white. 
It should take one more session to finish this one up.. 

Unfortunately, my brother rushed off to school this morning before I had a chance to snap a picture of him in the required pose for the last novel. It's okay. I'll catch him later today. Until then, I played with the angle and the lighting of the piece. The reason why there is only one digital rough has to do with the content of the novel. There is too much going on. I don't know what to focus on. My brother has assured me that I have picked a good scene to show, so I will continue with it. The problems with anatomy and angles will be corrected before the finished work is done in acrylic.

Yesterday was yet another day where my normal life took over and it was impossible to find any time for sitting down and working on some roughs.
Thankfully it was quiet this morning and I found the time to do two days worth of work.
The Halo roughs were supposed to be yesterday's assignment. I went with three of the roughs. I'm pulled towards A because I really want to show how impossible the fight was in the library. B was done just so I could have another view of the fight. C is a calmer view of the Chief as he looks out onto Halo Delta.
For Transformation, I went with two roughs. A is still my favorite because I want to play off the fact that the main character is a slave with an amazing past and powers. My brother was the model for the reference picture. For B, I played with the lights and shadow to give it a more mysterious feel. I want both of these to have a foreshadowing of wings somehow. Not sure how to to that with A just yet. With B, I might play with the vines in the background more and see what happens.

I'm going to continue with the pace of one set of digital roughs a day till they're done. It seems to be working and will leave me enough time to devote the rest of the month to finishing the final versions.
Today's roughs are from The Dreaming Void. I'm still devoted to doing a space scene. With the roughs, I played around with how people in that universe view the void. Some see it as a second chance for humanity, others see it as the end of everything. This is reflected in whether it is a shiny, white dream, or an all consuming darkness.
Originally, the planet was in the top right quadrant, but I realized that was where the text would be. I hope to be doing this one traditionally.

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I decided to take the day off and focus on personal art. I did spend a bit of time thinking about the roughs and where I'd like to go with them though.
I'm going to start off with the Black Gryphon roughs first since I see this cover as the easiest based on what I want. I'd like to create a modern looking cover without a lot of action and pointless detail. I want to focus on the character. Because the title has a color in it, I want to focus on that too. So, I see a pure black silhouette of a gryphon on the cover, stark against the white background, with only his eyes and beak visible. I'm trying out several different compositions with it with varying amounts of dynamic angles in them. To aid in this, I also collected some research pictures of eagles in flight so that I could get some of the anatomy correct.

Met with the professor today and showed him my roughs. I've managed to narrow each novel down to at least one rough that I'm going to expand upon. I'll start that tomorrow and will post the results. Sorry for not posting any pics today. Nothing has been draw as of yet.

Just as I planned, I managed to get 5 roughs done for each novel. Quick reminder here, they are more for me and may be hard for other people to understand. In my mind, I can tell exactly what is going on. Once I figure out which direction I'm going in, it will be easier to understand. I promise. Out of each set of roughs, I've already got a favorite that I'd like to enhance and maybe see all the way to the end.

Now that I have my new laptop, I will be able to really get started on everything involved in this class.
Today, I decided on my last two novels:

I know that yesterday I had said that I wanted to do something with dragons, but.... I changed my mind. I'll go with the well known, but not often illustrated gryphon. I've only read a portion of this book but I see this as a chance to put a lot of action into a work. I'd also get to work on textures thanks to the feathers.

I've picked the epic space opera The Dreaming Void to be my space piece. Of course, I could also take it towards a fantasy theme because of some parts of the story. I'd like to incorporate them both if I can. People with psyhic powers and spaceships and aliens and black holes and... you get the picture.
Tomorrow will be spent doing roughs. I'd like to have at least 5 roughs per novel to show to the teacher on our first meeting Thursday. Good luck to me.