...like pretzel! with a 'Q'

In an attempt to do a bird a week this is last weeks profit.

Considering the season I wanted to do a bird that had red and green in it. So naturally I chose a Quetzal.

A what?!

A Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. it's even on their flag!

my last bird was the turkey and the bird pose was an original piece from a several different reference sources, as opposed to my first five birds which were more like direct copies of one reference picture. All that to say that I am going to make all my future pieces completely original in pose, by referencing multiple sources.

yea, yea, boring, boring, where are the pictures?!


I started with a thumbnail sketch to get an idea of how to pose the bird. I actually like this sketch so much I might just do a miniature version on the left over green paper.

Here is the final sketch on newsprint. Like I said earlier I pulled from about five different references pictures for this pose.

Here is my first color pass. I felt like keeping a record of more of the process this time.

Here is the almost final bird, the branch still isn't penciled in and I still have some adjustments to make to the bird.

And here is a curent final, I plan to set it aside for at least this next week so that I can just look at it and see if there is anything I still want to fix or adjust before signing and framing it.

And here is a bonus, I kept my pencil shavings from the pencils that I used in this piece, Im just like that...