The book of nonsense illustration

I decided to start work on my illustration for the book of nonsense by Colin west this weekend. Originally i was going to do the poem about hats, but as we were working based on the illustrations that were already in the book i decided to change my mind as there was about 10 illustrations for one poem. As i am already working on the Nobrow brief i decided to give myself less of a challenge so it would be more manageable within the time for me. I have decided to now work on a poem about a fat cat and a skinny king.

I started off sketching kings but the sketched were coming out quite dark and creepy. I think i scared myself a little with them as i haven't really drawn anything this scary before. I decided not to take these drawings any further but here are the creepy sketches that i originally did.

I then read through the poem a few times and i realised that the poem didn't state what kind of king the poem was about. I then started to think outside of the box and thought about i would find funny to draw as i like to create humours illustrations. I decided to make a little character that is king of the hipsters (who doesn't like to draw a good hipster). Here is some of my development and the final illustration.

I used pencil to map out the drawing and gouache, crayon and coloured pencil for the colour. I am really happy with the final illustration, i think this is the first time in ages that i have created an illustration that i have been really happy with. (Yey)