It's one thing to work on a personal project where you can pretty much do what you want, when you want. But a commission requires collaboration and, of course, the ability to satisfy a client.

I received a commission to do a cover for a fantasy book, "The Brotherhood and the Shield". The author had some very specific things he wanted to include, such as an iron gate to a turn of the century borstal home, and a fearsome tree that serves as a portal to another world.

After we each made a few sketches, I presented an idea he liked: splitting the scene down the middle, with the reality on one side, the magical world on the other. The gate and the opening in the tree would together form an arch, while the book's three lead characters stood in front.

The author also knew just how he wanted the characters to look, so based on some reference photos he provided, as well as period costumes and stills I pulled from the web, I was able to present a final sketch for his approval.

When it came to painting, I first used a general wash of bright orange to serve as a "foundation" for the colors. I then airbrushed some basic light and dark elements, just to see how the overall color scheme would "flow".

Because this painting was going to be fairly detailed, I started out on the faces with colored pencils. It's a much easier starting point for small, detailed portraits, as doing a refined portrait with acrylic paints takes me a lot of time.

After the background and lighting effects are done, I then go back to the faces and add more details and touchups with paint.

These colored pencil "roughs" are best as a guide before doing the backgrounds. It also allows the client to see how the faces will basically appear before I go into the nitty-gritty of painting everything. At this point, I'm still able to make extensive revisions without too much difficulty.

Now comes the nitty-gritty. I start with the major colors first, in this case, orange, blue, and black. I'll go over them in more details and using other colors as the painting progresses.

Painting this way speeds up the process for me considerably.

I freaked out after airbrushing these lighting effects, thinking that I'd gone waaaay overboard. But even though I hated it, the client actually liked it! (Thank God.) In the future, I swear I'll save this kind of work for Photoshop; it's easier to use, and if you make a mistake you can fix it with the touch of a button.

Now the painting comes into its final stages. I experiment with Photoshop for some coloring and lighting effects, as well as fixing a few flaws here and there.

You'll notice here that I added more light in the lower right corner, and (at the client's request) I repainted the forest to make it look a little darker.

Here the client requested I remove some of the lighting effects that separated the boy in the center from the other two behind him. And just when I thought I was done, I noticed a terrible, horrendous flaw: two of the boys' heads were too big, not in proportion to what they should be...
Whoever invented Photoshop, I'm forever in your debt. A quick resizing and trimming, and the problem was solved. Here is the illustration with the corrected head sizes. See what a difference it makes?

But I'm still not quite done yet. I decide to experiment with some additional color tweaking and shading, making the left side of the picture a little more desaturated and upping the blues, while increasing the warm, saturated colors on the right. (I do each of these steps in individual layers, so each change can be tweaked and modified without affecting the other elements.) It's subtle, but compare it to the picture above and you'll see it. I also add a little shading on the three figures, along with a dark circular gradient around the edges to give it all a little more depth. The opacity of these shadings is only around 10% -- again, subtle, but it helps add a little more drama to the picture. I also crop it slightly, making it look a little more centered.

A few more painting adjustments are made: More shading and color on the boy's face on the left, shading on all the shirts, and color adjustments and backlighting on each of the boys' arms.

The final cover is still in progress, with more adjustments being made.
Below is a rough mockup.