Magazine illustration - lost

I started this by illustrating a 1940s field compass that was my partners grandfarthers.   I worked exstensivly on the final piece and it is by far the more detailed version of my work. the theme lost is on two levels, first the lost in a strange land with the sea as the compass and the second as a lost battle (becuase the poor black ship is so going down vs three other ships  then again maybe it will execute a swift getteway!).

Sketch of still life : I think i could have done a better job at this the perspective is off but i guess it lends a bit of charactor to it even though its not "correct". done with sketching watercolour pencils.

Thumbnails: as soon as i saw the compass i knew i wanted to use it for the lost articale. my first impulse was to do something simple using a compass that was confused and swirling out of control.  however i guess my imagination got the better of me and i decided to go with the compass world instead.

Orignal Tonal - at this point i swapped to digital i still havent got gt full compistion but im have a roughed out idea of where everything is.

Final piece :  i really enjoyed creating the below piece and i worked on it solidly having said that i am not happy with a few things about it.  first tritons anatomy is off, for some reason i have problems with shoulders specifically im actually taking a mentorship soon so i am hoping to improve my art skills in this area.