First Dream

This one began on a grid. The pencil stage is a full layout on a lettered and numbered sheet with everything measured, including the logo, which I drew by hand before it was ever set as type. Then a line stage, every path outlined and no colour at all. Then the fill, and the picture finally became what I had been seeing: a figure in the blue suit with gloved hands crossed, the Excelsior arcing overhead on an orange trail, planets and starbursts around it inside an orange and blue border. Thirty-four by fifty-six inches. Three stages, and the first one decided the other two. Part of The Fantastic Four: First Dreams.