Fantasy & Science Fiction: Concept Art/3

Here are two other sketches I dropped down the pipeline for Gordon Van Gelder during the realization of the original illustration for Five Thrillers, a novelet by Robert Reed. At this point I'm seeing a raised hand in the second row: "Please, tell me..."

Q.) How many sketches have you realized for this particular work?

A.) For this commission I realized six different sketches, each of them with different degrees of impact, all of them strictly connected to the story I had read in advance. Gordon forwarded the manuscript via email once I had confirmed my acceptance of the assignment.

Among the six sketches, there are two/three main versions, followed by secondary concepts with variations/mixing of same elements, color proofs and other tweaking.

Q.) How long did you take to complete this artwork?


A.) Being a fan of Robert Reed, it took:

• an evening for reading avidly the story and elaborate a few notes
  
• a further week for the sketches
  
• a small waiting while Gordon showed around my creations and decided the path. This is the hardest moment, you can hear the crunch of parallel Universes splitting...
  
• another week for completing and shipping the illustration.
  

I think about three weeks from the beginning to the end! ...It's just the organic rhythm of the editorial life. During the pauses - in the middle there were the usual exchanges of ideas, comments and feedback -, I kept working to other assignments...