'The Laughing Pirate' - finished illustration

So here's the finished illustration of my 'Laughing Pirate' idea. There's plenty of stock-in-trade pirate stuff going on here, so nothing especially original I suppose, but I'm really pleased with the picture and how it turned out. In the end I opted for a digital paint rather than the watercolour and gouache I'd been considering. You can see how much the final image has evolved from the original concept drawing and colour sketch. One of benefits of painting digitally is that it does allow you to experiment with colour a lot more easily, and I think in this case it let me find a colour scheme that I might have taken a lot longer to arrive at if I was using traditional paint. This was particularly true of the figure's coat and his hair / beard. I explored few different colours but everything seemed to click into place once I started in with the yellows and deep red.

I'm not sure what my next project will be. Developing my illustration portfolio feels high on my agenda at the moment, so possibly more of the same. Whatever it is, I'll be back with another post soon hopefully...