During the ToyCon 2008 held just recently, I took part in 2 contests. This was one of them: The Talecraft Illustration Contest. Talecraft is a story creation card game. There are character cards and I chose the Monstrous Adolescent card to illustrate (I chose 3 character cards randomly and opted to go for that one.)
My initially study was #1. But then I realized that the whole point of Talecraft is to have players come up with unique story & character ideas of their own and not to be boxed in by the relatively limited view presented on any card. So I essentially went more towards a fairly more surreal and expressive illustration - hopefully giving players more leeway in terms of their imagination.
I used a child soldier as reference. He had a pretty intense gaze.
