If It Doesn't Look Good, Change It

Here are some in-progress shots for yet another recital poster commission:

Thumbnails. I just noticed how much the trumpet looks like a miniature clarinet in some of these.

A little more development on the chosen thumbnail. This was especially necessary with the completely different viewpoint of the pose.

 

At this point I have gathered some better reference photos. Sometimes your reference photos give you better ideas for the pose and composition, such as having the trumpet in a resting position and over-exposed lighting on the face. I thought I would try adding color at this stage, but found out that I needed to develop my figure. I actually went back to working in black and white before adding color again. 

Quite a bit of work up until this point. I'm very much enjoying pushing that glow as far as it can go.

After receiving some suggestions from my professor and classmates, I decided to change the entire background so that the eye of the storm is positioned in the lower corner. The visual flow is much better and the perspective makes more sense too. Even this late in the game, re-painting large sections is worth the time.

Some very small, but important tweaks. These can be more easily viewed flipping through the pop-up viewer.