Mars Cornhole Board Process Part 3: Finished Drawing

The Final Drawing... This is where I did the research: built models, watched documentaries, read articles, studied reference pictures, asked lots of questions and tried to get everything pretty accurate. Although in the end I kind of just had to make some decisions and simplify a few things.

An Atlas rocket model, a painted soapbox for the tower, a mars/ rocks model I built from Sculpey and aluminum foil, and a cut out of the rover's back panel on a stylus.

After completing the tonal and color comp, I took the thumbnail drawing to Staples (before I painted over it) and had them print it out the size of the cornhole board on some cheap paper. I covered the back in pencil and transferred this to the board.

I cut around the rover and rocket because I had to redraw everything else like the rocks and smoke. And of course I had to add all the details on the rover and rocket/ launch pad, so I just drew all of that on top of the printed drawing with ellipse guides, rulers, french curves, a T-square and a whole lot of coffee.

The finished drawing on the cornhole board.

But even after you transfer it down, you kind of have to redraw it again to darken it a little more. Otherwise it's too light.

This part took me awhile. It can get pretty monotonous, but it's also kind of fun because you finally start seeing some details.