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I was extremely fortunate to grow up knowing many Osprey illustrators who were friends of my father Richard Hook, who worked from his studio at our home and was of course my main influence and taught me everything. Ron Embleton, Gerry Embleton and Angus McBride along with Martin Windrow were all wonderful company for a young man. I always hoped, but didn't really believe, that one day I could do what they did.
In this blog post I try to give an explanation of how I produce an Osprey illustration. I have attempted below to set out my working process and attach some photos to illustrate it.
Once I receive the author's brief and references for an Osprey title, the first thing I do is write out the brief myself, making notes of the relevant references, and start to sketch how the figures may work. For a Men-at-Arms title I also look at how the three figures will best fit together on the page. The example here is for Men-at-Arms 562, Partisan Warfare in Greece 1941–44.
The process is slightly different for a Campaign title, where I have to do an initial working drawing to scale to include all the required elements, and work out a viewpoint and composition. This can be seen in my initial sketch for Campaign 411, The Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket 1944.
For a Combat title figure plate I have to consider how best to show both sides of the figure, as in this initial sketch of an Australian soldier for Combat 79, Eighth Army Soldier vs Italian Soldier.
Returning to Men-at-Arms 562, I then produce my drawing. I use 0.5mm and 0.3mm propelling pencils with B grade leads on 90 gsm tracing paper. Once altered, following comments from the author, this drawing can then be traced down onto illustration board.
I then redraw the figure, adjusting things I am unhappy with, and consider all the references provided and those that I have found myself.
Then I fix the drawing in place with a wash of yellow oxide liquitex acrylic mixed with titanium white and paint the finished figure in liquitex acrylics but using a watercolour style.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my work methods for producing an Osprey illustration. I hope they will be of interest to Osprey readers.
You can find out about Adam's work and purchase his art on his website.
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