I did up some sketches of the character to begin with, just so I could get comfortable with drawing the guy and also so that I could do the character justice without aping Richard's style...
Once I felt I was comfortable enough with drawing the character, I had to come up with an idea for the image. I was having difficulty with this as I didn't want to simply draw the character standing there like a statue but I couldn't think up of anything interesting for the character to do (I blame a major case of artist's block I was having at that moment). Then, I struck upon the idea of Uncle Swifty being just that...namely, an uncle. And what do all uncles inevitably do when drunk? Why, dance in a horrifically bad fashion is what. So, I did a quick sketch to figure out his pose...
Once that was done, it was simply a matter of laying out the lines and then inking them in. What you see here is pretty much what's going to be in the book (albeit, without the nasty red lines)...
Technically, I could have left it at that but I decided to add a splash of colour to the piece...
Aaaaaand there you go. I can't believe I stayed up so long working on those colours. I'm mad. Mad, I tell you!
