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Description
Some of you have corresponded with me asking me the process behind this piece, here's a breakdown of it:

I knew initially the subject matter I wanted to portray. I wanted the main figure to have a statuesque, dimensional , feel in the piece. This was going to be a collage type of illustration, although I wanted all the elements to be part of a scene, not just floating heads on a canvas.
1. Sketching - I've been messing around with Andrew Loomis Informal Subdivision lately, and I wanted to derive my composition with it. I narrow down the poses, and got to work on the details of the character. I wanted the clothing of the main figure to flow with the pose, and not hide it too much, I also knew I wanted to introduce a sense of motion so the clothes needed to be light enough to provide secondary motion. Once I nailed down the detail it was time for value and color.
2. Value & Color - I wanted to play with a range of styles, initially I tried and push a more collage type of look. I also played with different times of day. I really liked some of the versions I was coming up with, but ultimately decided that the night times wouldn't fit with the tone I was trying to convey.
3. Refine - Once I had my value and color set, it was a matter of painting over it and refining. I start by going over areas with the smudge tool and blurring out the edges. I then paint a lot of these edges back to get them to the proper focus. I'll go over large areas first breaking them down, and making them more detailed. I try and work over the piece, if I find spending too much time over an area, I let it go and paint over something else. Initially everything moves much quicker because the point at that stage is to build up the variations on the larger pieces. As those get done I move closer in to smaller areas.
4. Post Production - Once I start to get the piece to a point where I think it's getting done I will add a grey layer at a low opacity and with a red solid brush I will circle areas I think need further refinement, then I will stop the painting. I won't pick it up again for another day, at which point I have a clear idea what needs to get done to finish. Once I've done those refinement, I get away from the piece again. The more time I spend away from a piece the easier it is to be critical of the piece. When I get back to it I look for areas to focus in the direction of the piece. At this point I'll also add some adjustment layers to further call out points of interest and subdue background details.

The piece took about 3-4 days of straight work; 1 day to do the sketching and color variations, the rest to finish the piece.

Description
Some of you have corresponded with me asking me the process behind this piece, here's a breakdown of it:

I knew initially the subject matter I wanted to portray. I wanted the main figure to have a statuesque, dimensional , feel in the piece. This was going to be a collage type of illustration, although I wanted all the elements to be part of a scene, not just floating heads on a canvas.
1. Sketching - I've been messing around with Andrew Loomis Informal Subdivision lately, and I wanted to derive my composition with it. I narrow down the poses, and got to work on the details of the character. I wanted the clothing of the main figure to flow with the pose, and not hide it too much, I also knew I wanted to introduce a sense of motion so the clothes needed to be light enough to provide secondary motion. Once I nailed down the detail it was time for value and color.
2. Value & Color - I wanted to play with a range of styles, initially I tried and push a more collage type of look. I also played with different times of day. I really liked some of the versions I was coming up with, but ultimately decided that the night times wouldn't fit with the tone I was trying to convey.
3. Refine - Once I had my value and color set, it was a matter of painting over it and refining. I start by going over areas with the smudge tool and blurring out the edges. I then paint a lot of these edges back to get them to the proper focus. I'll go over large areas first breaking them down, and making them more detailed. I try and work over the piece, if I find spending too much time over an area, I let it go and paint over something else. Initially everything moves much quicker because the point at that stage is to build up the variations on the larger pieces. As those get done I move closer in to smaller areas.
4. Post Production - Once I start to get the piece to a point where I think it's getting done I will add a grey layer at a low opacity and with a red solid brush I will circle areas I think need further refinement, then I will stop the painting. I won't pick it up again for another day, at which point I have a clear idea what needs to get done to finish. Once I've done those refinement, I get away from the piece again. The more time I spend away from a piece the easier it is to be critical of the piece. When I get back to it I look for areas to focus in the direction of the piece. At this point I'll also add some adjustment layers to further call out points of interest and subdue background details.

The piece took about 3-4 days of straight work; 1 day to do the sketching and color variations, the rest to finish the piece.