Additional and final black and white sketches

Here are simply some progress sketches of the last black and white sketch

as seen, first just the outline across the board is laid out, and then the most dramatic scene to me (the place where the flame is consuming London and sending dark stuff through the ether - early on I realized in this sketch that for some reason I cropped like an inch off the left - so I had to just go with it

The second sketch begins adding more details on the boat and in the castle - also some of the people at the end are being added

in this one I'm adding more of the people on the lower left, adding details and darkness/contrast overall to the river and to the boats in the centre - I think here's where I began with an error in the castle area - in all my sketches so far I have had trouble calibrating elements in the castle

here we see more details emerging throughout the picture, more darks & lights, etc - also the error along the castle (I keep calling it a castle but it's really the parliament building) became solidified, so I had to simply go with it, once again. This is after all the sketching phase. Also finished the people on the right.

This is technically finished, but I am not liking how there are parts of it that are too stark, so I added graphite and blended in the smoke cloud.

Overall not happy with the dark of the sky but I think it's still an improvement over the 2nd sketch I did where I overdid everything

this is how far I will take it now. As I said, the left inch is gone, the sky is to heavy, and obviously I didn't finish the right edge in a finished way, and also the Parliament needs to be improved, but as I said I feel like this is as far as it needs to go

For contrast, I am posting the previous sketch to compare:

and then the other one:

next time I will bring colour into the mix