The following is a cover I did back in 2004 for Rick Norwood’s Comics Revue.
The following are the steps from roughs to finish.
The first step are the roughs – this is where you get a feel for the figures and layout. My roughs tend to vary on how complete they are. This is somewhat of a mess, but crucial in giving me an idea of what the finished drawing would look like.
The next step is pencils – which means finding reference and tightening up the drawing. When you’re inking your own pencils you don’t have to have them as tight as when you’re pencilling for someone else. All the pertinent info should be there though – just needs refinement.
The next step is inks. This is my favorite part.
The trick is to ink the form, not just trace the line.
For color on this piece I went old school and colored it using the blue line method. This is where you take the black line art and (in photoshop) change it to a light blue. You then print the image onto watercolor paper for coloring. The reason for the blue line is so that you have a clean black line when the color and line art are combined.
The last step is combing the black line and watercolored art in photoshop. I opted to take all the black line art in the background imagery and make it a little grayer to push it into the background – touch up the color as I saw fit – and call it a night.
For more covers I’ve done for Comics Revue, check out the following.
And for more info on Comics Revue, just check out: ComicsReview.com
