Sketches part 2

Ok, so sometimes I have a very clear idea what a character SHOULD look like, but when I get to drawing him/her, the result is a wild diversion. This is what happened with the character of The Pastor. The Pastor is supposed to be middle-aged, probably close to fifty. For some reason I drew him like this:

I pretty much rejected it right away, but kept drawing because, i dunno, I liked the result in an odd way. I think this is the first drawing I did when I actually started the process for Godstown. It was a good exercise in drawing a 'cowboy' to say the least. 

Jamie, the story's writer, had initially suggested the Pastor look like Spenser Tracy. I think when I drew the first image I was using a reference pic of Tracy, but he must have been too young (in the picture). I refocused and came up with these drawings:

While, the character has evolved to look a bit different (they always seem to do), this was the look I wanted.

I can't remember if I've ever drawn a horse before this project (I rarely draw animals). I definitely hadn't drawn the "Old West". This next sketch was to help me visualize what drawing style(s) I should be using.

Again, not exactly how the final "look" turned out, but a very useful drawing to get the feel I wanted. These were pretty much the only sketch work I did before starting. I'm not big on doing hundreds of sketches before a project as I much rather let the art evolve on the story pages. I did gather, literally hundreds of reference images through capturing still frames from movie westerns, but due to copywrite, I won't be posting any images from that collection.