November 2, 2009

The Big Sleep

Sternwood
Sternwood_process
Here is an illustration I just finished of Carmen Sternwood from the final scenes of Chandler's The Big Sleep. I noticed a lot of my thumbnail sketches while reading were characters other than Marlowe, so it was interesting to attempt to capture his tone through a supporting character and scene. Unlike previous approaches, I tried to limit the compositional drawings to rough thumbnails, which allowed the final drawing/watercolor process to be a bit more fluid.

In other news, I've been included in Taschen's new "Illustration Now! 3" book, alongside some amazing artists. I also did a quick Q&A with the good folks at Gym Class Magazine, which is on internet-stands now.

2 comments:

Matt E Wood said...

Congratulations, Owen. I like the new approach you mentioned, there's a lot of power in it. Your treatment of texture in this piece feels good.

ping zhu said...

hurray! congrats :) it was nice to talk to you the other day. really love the background and the figure's stark contrast. lovely lovely