The Tin Project #4 Illustrate From a Paragraph in a Book

I pulled this one in August....and finished it last month (October). I was excited to start, mostly because I had the perfect idea and image AND I was reading Bram Stoker's Dracula (which I still have to finish).  But this one paragraph stood out far more then any other parts I had read already. It was dark and deep and disturbing, giving me beautiful visuals and ideas.

Well it's a little more then a paragraph.
" "You ourself never loved; you never love!" 
On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter ran through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned,
after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper: 
"Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to do done."
"Are we to have nothing tonight?" said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as thought there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women close round, whilst I was aghast with horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag.  "

So if anyone has read the book or knows basic information on Dracula you know he has 3 wives (well at least in this book). One is mentioned to be fair of skin and have blonde hair, while the other two I assume to have the standard Romanian traits. Which google has showed me to be dark hair, dark eyes and a olive to tannish skin color. I tried to look up time period clothing for the 18th century for Romanian women, also what there beauty standards were back then. Sadly Google took that and showed me lots of sexy ladies that were NOT from the 18th century. So thanks Google...

So this picture took me 3 months to complete. I was excited, scared, worried, but mostly I waited so long to start because I didn't want to give myself even the slightest chance to make a crappy picture. And not giving myself a chance meant not starting to begin with. For one whole month I did nothing but worry about how it would look or HOW it should look or where to start. I was scared about drawing a whole room and then filling that room with people and objects. I know I'm not very good with persecutive or angles, and how would I draw a person that was pretending to be asleep? Or get the right angle to show the baby bag on the floor or ever show Dracula's face? It all just made me even more scared and paralyzed to start. After a while, I gave myself a break and decided it was okay to do a concept type drawing.

I wanted to show the control Dracula had over his brides, as well has showing the burlap bag and the craving these vampires had to feed. It's sad to think that 3 grown lady vamps had to share one infant and then to think how hungry they must really be.

So after I gave myself a mental break, I started my process.

Step one: Sketch it out. I decided the less detail the less overwhelming it would be.  

Step two: Adding a little more detail and fixing some things. Like the hands where to close in the last one. Added blood for effects. 

Step three: Search Google for some pictures to collage into your concept of what you want your drawing to be. Be prepared to search for hours for the right angles.

Step four: My friend Helen (Atlanta Artist) told me when you sketch to always start out with blue. Used mostly for scanning purposes, but I use it for digital to. It also helps for when you put darker lines over. 

Step five: Ink the darker final type lines over the messy blue sketch. I'm still working on digital stuff, so I'm not amazing but I'm not the worst. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm not good enough yet to be disappointed, and just reminding myself of that helped me push forward. 

Step six: Adding the dark background and filling in the hands and worked on the floor.

Step seven: Filled in the dresses and hair and bodies.

Step eight: Finished up the baby bag and added more of a lighting effect. And then I was DONE!!! YAY! 

I would say for not drawing digitally in a while, I did pretty good. I'm really proud of myself for finishing this and not leaving another project in the project graveyard. 

So let me know what you think! Please don't rip me apart, that's not what I'm asking for. But if you got any great tips, tricks, or tutorials, please leave them in the comments! I would love to hear them.