Illustration - The Preying Mantis (Part 2)

After a bit more work and some experimenting.  I’ve added in color and started my spot illustration to go along with the feature that I posted the other day. I did some research after reading in the story that this diner is more or less in the middle of no where and has an attached gas station.  This of course is a very old style service center, much like those along Route 66.  So I went into the depths of Flickr and Wikipedia searching about how they generally work, look and the era they were constructed.  The spot illustration is where I put this attention to detail, even though the size is only 3.5” wide by 2.25” tall.  My reasons for doing so is that I wanted to give a over all vision of this diner called Hinky Dinky, but subtlety add in a creepy vibe.  I’m sure I’ll be changing it before I turn in the completed version next week, but this is what I made:

Keeping in mind that this spot is smaller than the feature, it needed to be simple, but still get the message across of what it was. I decided to make a face out of the building that also has a spider-like central body and “arms” that come out of it.  I think my next version might be a shot looking down on the top of the building instead.  We’ll see.

As for the feature, adding the color makes for a better image:

This also isn’t finished, but I wanted to update with where I was going with the two since I only posted the black and white study last time.  I’ll get the final versions up in a couple days once they are finished.