Dragon Rider WIP 1

New picture for the children's illustration portfolio I'm working on. My idea was to depict a little girl curled up in a chair, so engrossed in reading her book that she imagines herself as the heroine of the tale.

Every picture I do starts with a thumbnail sketch, no larger than a couple inches tall. This allows me to jot down all the important details of an idea quickly, and "feel out" a composition without spending too much time on it. This way, I can easily try multiple takes if something's not working.

In this case, I was satisfied with the original thumbnail, and move straight onto the rough sketch, a full-sized drawing based off the thumbnail. Sometimes I will work the rough sketch to completion, but in this case it was too messy, so I transferred the drawing onto another sheet of paper to do my final pass (and made a couple tweaks to the composition while I was at it).

This is where I currently am: the lines are clean and ready for colors!