Last of the old art, and my favorite piece from 2022. I love American robins and bluejays and I had this in my head for a while. I also have an alternate version, since this piece was inspired by vintage bird paintings after all.
Orion Wells and James Audubon WIPs:
First I had to figure out how the bird griffins were going to work anatomically. It doesn't look important in the final, but figuring out how they were constructed really helped in the sketching phase.
Thumbnails. It was very hard to choose between the first and second one. The second one seemed more open and friendly between the birds, but there wasn't a great silhouette with the robin. The first had the opposite problem: a much more striking silhouette but the robin looked angry as hell. In the end I adjusted the first to make the robin happier.
Finally some sketch/line work.
