Painting Technique - Monkey Cover #1

I had a few people say that my last painting demo was useful to help them get started with digital painting so I thought it was about time for another. This time I'm using a different technique for the final art. I haven't finished the piece yet so I'll keeping adding posts as I get to different stages in the process. Feel free to comment and let me know how you think it's progressing.

Above is a rough sketch for the cover of the picture book "If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" to be published by Pleasant St. Press The front cover will show the bus from head on and the back of the cover will show the side view of the bus with all the animals sticking their heads out.

Since a bus is mainly squares and straight lines I did an initial drawing of the bus in Illustrator. I find it quicker and easier to draw geometric things like buses and houses that way instead of using a t-square and ruler. Then I printed out my bus and added the characters. I also found a couple of fun fonts on myfonts.com for the title and author's name. One was called "grilled cheese" How can you not like a font called "grilled cheese"?

The monkey behind the wheel is looking a bit psycho at the moment (YIKES) but at least I have something down on paper to start with. I always tell myself to just get it down on paper and fix it later.