Sketchbook Journey: Before the Final Design – Exploring Halloween Thumbnails

 

Before I start rendering a finished piece, there are usually a lot of little ideas that happen first.

Sometimes a lot of them.

This page is a pretty good example of what that process looks like for me. With Halloween getting closer, I’ve been exploring pumpkins, bottles, strange creatures, and different combinations of all three. Instead of jumping immediately into a polished illustration, I like to make a bunch of small thumbnails and see where the ideas take me.

Working small lets me move fast.

I can try a pumpkin inside a bottle, change the shape of the container, stack a few creatures together, exaggerate a silhouette, or completely abandon an idea and move on to the next one. Nothing has to be precious at this stage. The goal is simply to get the ideas out of my head and somewhere I can actually see and compare them.

Looking at the entire page now, it seems like a ridiculous amount of sketching.

Honestly, I don't even know anymore. 😂

When I'm in that mode, time just disappears. One thumbnail becomes another, which creates another idea, and suddenly I've filled an entire page with pumpkins and weird little things trapped in jars.

But that's also why I enjoy this part of the process so much.

Not every thumbnail needs to become something. Some will never go any further than these little blue sketches. Others might contribute one small idea to a completely different design. And every once in a while, one of them has something that makes me stop and think, there it is.

That's when I know I've found something worth developing further.

The Pumpkins in a Bottle sketch from my previous entry came out of this same kind of exploration. Seeing all of these ideas together also helps me understand why certain compositions work better than others before spending hours rendering anything.

With Halloween approaching, I'm already producing more seasonal artwork and experimenting with ideas for the store. There will be finished designs, new banners, and plenty more Halloween work to share when they're ready.

For now, though, this is the messy part.

Lots of thumbnails. Lots of ideas. No pressure to make every single one work.

Just keep drawing and see what happens.

And as always…

Let’s keep going.