The Queen tribute drawing process

 Because of my financial situation, I haven't been able to shoot good video or do a time lapse of my drawing process.  Here's some photos of the process of the Queen tribute drawing I just finished.  First of all, I "cheat."  I pick a photo, blow it up on a copy machine, tape the pieces together full size, and pencil the whole back.  Then I tape it down, go over the basic outline, doing a graphite transfer.  That sounds like tracing.  But if you saw my pencil outlines, you'd realize that I just get a rough outline, and ultimately, I shade in ink.  One pass. 

Once I have the pencil outline, I break out the Sharpies.  Then I use a standard, black, Sharpie fine point to ink the basic outline.  That's what you see above.  In this drawing, the "stomp, stomp, clap" words I drew old school drafting style, measuring and drawing them by hand.

 For this drawing, I put a lot of the song titles in the background of the darkened stadium.  This photo was actually from Queen's last live show with Freddie Mercury, while he was still alive, in Wembley Stadium.  I didn't realize this at first, it just had a cool look, and room for the big words I wanted in the back, which are a reference to the song "We Will Rock You."  I color one color at a time, working towards the final color with my layers of scribbles.  So things change colors several times as I draw.

 Here I've colored three or four colors on the left side, three on the cloak, (before shadows) and added album titles written in the background on the right.  You can see Freddie Mercury starting to stand out.

 Here's my "mobile studio, this time at Wendy's, with the photo on the computer in the background to check the colors.  The backgrounds are mostly done, the cloak is done, and there's pink shading, the first color down, on the shadows on Freddie.

 Here's a somewhat close-up of the drawing, a week and a half from the start, after 35 or so drawing hours I'd say. 

Here's the final drawing, at the library.  I'm going to get a new silver Sharpie and outline the letters in "Queen," to make them pop a bit more.  Other than that, it's done.  Like I said, I picked this photo to work from intuitively, I liked the pose, the par can light colors on the right, Freddie standing out from the background, and it had room for the "stomp, stomp, clap."  

While I'm drawing these, I listen to the music and any documentaries I can about the band.  I was already a huge fan of Queen.  But finding out that this photo is from Freddie's last concert, and one of Queen's biggest shows ever, is icing on the cake.  This drawing is 18" X 24", done with Sharpies on paper, and in my unique #sharpiescribblestyle.  It's $125 for the original, there will be no copies or prints, if you're interested.  You can contact me at:  stevenemig13@gmail.com .