Final Piece #5 (discarded)

For my 5th final piece to be included in my book of drawings, I have created the illustration of a rat, in the shape of the letter 'S'.

Initial basis for the illustration.

The illustration was initially sketched out with graphite pencil, with a simple outline of the letter 'S' to wrap the image around. After laying down the rough shape that I wanted the piece to follow, I sketched out the basic lineart. After this I then coloured the illustration in, using 'pastel' like tones. For the colouring, I used coloured graphite pencil to start with, which gave me an idea of the colours that I wanted to use. after I was happy with the colour, I moved onto using watercolour paints. Once the painting was completed, and dry, I then added detail like fur, eyes and ears, as well as the tail texture, predominantly using a dark HB pencil.

The finished illustration.

Update:

After self review, I have decided to discard this illustration, as use in my book of drawings. I feel no longer happy with this image, as compared to my other illustrations, it just doesn't match up to standards enough, in my opinion. I will include this image as part of my development, but it will not be taking up a page in my book.

Despite scraping this piece as a part of my book, I do like the colours I have used, as well as the shape of the body. However, the negatives for me outweigh the positives, which is a key reason why I decided to leave this illustration out of the final book. For starters, the proportions of the animal are all wrong, the face clearly displays this, as it is not the right shape. Also I don't like how I created the eye, it looks like it should have been moved slightly. Another thing, is the ears are also in the wrong place, they are too far to the left, and I just generally don't like how I made this image look.

Thomas.