Went home for lunch and finished two cover ideas to illustrate Paul Andrew Hutton's hard hitting cover story in the next issue (March) on a little known chapter in the Apache Wars: "The Severed Heads Campaign," when Gen. George Crook paid bounties on seven Apache heads, literally. Both paintings depict Mickey Free bringing in the head of Delchay. Here is the original cover sketch idea:
Daily Whip Out: "Mickey Free With The Head of Delchay Cover Sketch"
From there I went with a little more obtuse angle, trying to difuse a bit of the graphic angle:
Daily Whipout: "Mickey With Delchay's Head, No. 2"
I may have overworked it, here is the first version before I added the pistol, etc.
Daily Whip Out: "Mickey With Delchay's Head, No. 1"
When I finished this morning, I worried that it's too comic bookish for True West and so I grabbed an unfinished portrait of Mickey and added Delchay a little more subtle like:
Daily Whip Out: "Mickey Free With Delchay's Head Sitting On Crate"
Scans went down to Dan The Man at 2:30 and we'll see what magic he comes up with to make this fly. This quote is a repeat, but bears repeating:
"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."
—Edgar Degas
