Skelton's Keys To The Classics: Jungle Book

Skelton Crew has a line of 'Keys to the Classics' of keys designed by artists to summarize a book in classic literature. As you may remember, Israel Skelton and I did a line of Mouse Guard replica weapons years ago, so it was a pleasure to reunite when he asked if I'd design a Jungle Book themed key: 'The Key to the Ruined City'

I was given technical specifications for the thickness, width, height, etc as well as a caveat that I needed to pull visuals and details only from the original text instead of any popular adaptations.

My goal was to make the key look like a stone or bone carving of a portion of the ruined city itself that also featured Shere Kahn, Bagheera, Baloo, Kaa, and some monkeys (Not King Louie--as he was a Disney invention)

The job started with pencil sketches digitally toned of the key rotation where each side is a bit different (especially the monkeys) This stage took the longest as I had to keep making adjustments so that the silhouette of each side matched the other and that the side edge details wrapped around convincingly enough. 

Because I knew Skelton Crew would like cleaner linework to use as etched/carved lines in the key itself, I then did an inked version using the above pencil version as a guide to ink from on my Huion lightpad. While in some ways I think the stark lines take away from the softer and more subtle pencil version above, it did give me a chance to clean up bits I wanted to refine.

The last step before sending it off was to do a digital render on the inked drawing to help show the relief and form.

The key itself is available for purchase at Skelton Crew's Online Store:
skeltoncrewstudio.bigcartel.com

And I have a few available with signed boxes in my online store:
mouseguard.bigcartel.com