Moebius Tribute

Earlier this year I was approached by a French Publisher and asked if I would like to take part in a Moebius tribute book. Moebius (aka Jean Giraud) was an influential French artist, who unfortunately passed away in March. You can learn more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraud. I was both flattered, and a little intimidated. I wanted to produce a piece of art that did justice to the sense of wonder that Moebius inspired in me with his art.

Many talented artists contributed, and as I saw their pieces of art posted online, my feelings of intimidation grew a little more. From their pieces, I also saw that doing a straight interpretation of a Moebius character, such as Lt. Blueberry was not for me. A similar piece from me would pale in comparison to some of the other tributes.

I finally decided to do more of a conceptual piece--one that would hopefully convey a sense of peace and wonder. It also had to be in a style that I was comfortable with. I went through several ideas in my sketchbook before I created one that I was happy with. Then I refined that idea a little more. Here are some of those sketches.

The first two were early ideas that I soon discarded, as they didn't convey the emotions that I was looking for. The second set of sketchbook pages represent the rough of the final concept and some refinement of the face and costume, along with notes. From this I moved on to final art. I had originally intended to do this illustration with traditional media, but with my schedule at the time, I decided that a combination of digital and traditional would be quickest. Here's the line art, created in Photoshop.

Once I was happy with the line art, I added colour and texture, also in Photoshop. The final piece comes pretty close to expressing what I had hoped to express--feelings of serenity and wonder. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Artwork is © Chris Chuckry 2012