This initially started out as just the painting. A very small one - 8 inches x 10 inches - but I do enjoy detail work, so I had no problem dealing with the smaller scale. I took great inspiration from the Rococo painting The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The character is made up, but I mostly based him on myself. To some extent, this could be considered a self-portrait.
Later, I drew up some more sketches of him. I wanted to practice with more full-body poses (as I tend to stop just below the shoulders when sketching out characters), and I also wanted to get a feel out for the character design.
I created a book cover using the painting as the cover illustration. I wanted to keep going with this character and flesh him out as a character with some lore and backstory. I have a story written out, and I want to illustrate it.