Skull - concept to finished piece

Oh my goodness!  I spent so much time watching art videos from Artist Network TV that I got nothing else done this weekend!!  I learned a LOT!  I was planning to apply some of my newfound knowledge in painting watercolour today, but I found that I was incredibly exhausted.  I know from past experience (and I've been instructed this way by Gordon MacKenzie) that if you are tired you shouldn't paint.  These two things just don't go well together!

So I took Mr. MacKenzie's advice and had a nap instead.  Since there is no progress to report today, I thought I might show some pics of the progress of the skull.  I don't think that I included any of the conceptual images in my previous posts.

So here's the original concept design:

Not much to look at is he?  But I think you can clearly see that I was trying to get the name to fit into the skull.  I had originally thought of adding a flame around the skull, but later discarded it.

This is a human skull image that I drew of an image I got off the net.  This is almost a medical drawing, but since I have never drawn a skull before, and I wanted it to be at least based on realism, I had t start somewhere.

You can see from these two images how I modified the original skull (traced it onto tracing paper then put a piece of paper on top to make a copy with modifications) and started to fill in the shapes.

This of course is the finished piece.  He came a long way from the concept image.  And I have to say that I had no idea how he would ultimately come out.  After I made my modifications, I mostly let the drawing decide what it wanted/needed to be complete.  I think this made it a better drawing because I had no real expectations.

Now if only I could do the same thing with painting!