As I've always been obsessed with super high-detail wimmelbilderbuch illustration, I was immediately drawn to the Dutch Renaissance masters. My favorites are Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch. I went through a weird hell phase at the end of 2017, completely obsessed with classical depictions of hell. I spent a lot of time studying the many hellscapes of Bosch, and even bought myself a shower curtain featuring this one entitled Hell 2. I study it every time I go in my bathroom and always seem to find some extraordinary new detail. 

I loved it so much I decided to draw a "cover illustration" of it. I'm not sure if this is already a thing; I see it as kind of like a cover song, but in the form of a drawing. I used the same general layout and even some of his characters while incorporating some new and modern components. I drew this picture differently than most of my illustrations. Rather than completing a rough draft of the whole image before starting the ink, I began by sketching the bottom portion in pencil and inking it before I had even thought about the rest of the image. I proceeded to draw it in chunks in the same fashion. I approached this drawing far more loosely than most of my other pictures, which made it a thoroughly enjoyable piece to work on. Plus, I love drawing this sort of gnarly gore and torment. It's a cathartic way to decompress after a challenging day! It was drawn with red and yellow Micron pens on 11" x 14" Bristol. Scroll down for process pictures and detail shots. You can purchase prints here!