GHOST #3 Cover Step by Step

Here's how I created the cover to Ghost #3, out this month from Dark Horse. Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Christopher Sebela and Geraldo Borges.

First thing was to come up with a cover sketch. These are sketches I submitted to Editor Patrick Thorpe at Dark Horse - drawn at 2x3 inches in my sketchbook in pencil and pen and then cleaned up and colored in Photoshop.

I started penciling the cover  with light blue and HB lead on 12" x 18" Bristol Board.

Almost finished pencils.

A few more details and cleaning up - final pencils.

Rachel Dodson's initial inks on the cover

Rachel uses Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable #2 Brush and Higgins Black Magic ink to ink the covers with.

Rachel's final inks…then the art is scanned and cleaned in Photoshop.

The first stage of coloring is to have the art "flatted".

Flatting allows the colorist to choose an area to color at any point throughout the coloring proces

My initial rough in of the colors, done in Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet. This is about a half hour.

I used warm foreground colors and the cool greens in the refection to separate.

Refining colors and begin turning black lines into color lines.

The final colors - I added Ghost's reflection to the window and turned the villain from Black to Dark Green to help the illusion of depth.

This ended up being my favorite image of Ghost I ever drew and as it's the last cover I'm doing (for now) - I was very pleased to go out on a high note!

The cover is out in stores starting today!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

http://www.comicshoplocator.com/Home/1/1/57/575

Enjoy!

TD

ECCC 2014 Black Cat Sketch

 Black Cat sketch from Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, 2014.

Initital drawing on 11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper,  with a Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil, Pitt XS pen, Warm Grey Copics for value.

More Warm Grey Copics for values, then Pitt F, Copic .05, Pigma 1 Black Pens to finish the drawing and highlights with White Prismacolor Pencil.

Detail

TD

ECCC 2014 Rogue Captain Marvel Sketch

Yep, you read that right - Rogue in the new Captain Marvel costume (don't ask me, ask Amber, who I drew this for…)

Initial drawing on 11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper,  with a Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil, Pitt XS pen, Warm Grey Copics for values, then Pitt F, Copic .05, Pigma 1 Black Pens to finish the drawing and highlights with White Prismacolor Pencil.

Detail

After I double-checked with Amber about which Ms Marvel costume, I finished up the drawing :-)

Had a lot of fun with this one...

TD

ECCC 2014 - Colossus Sketch

 My Colossus sketch from Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, 2014.

Drawn on  11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper,  with a Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil, Pitt XS pen, Warm Grey Copics for values, then Pitt F, Copic .05, Pigma 1 Black Pens to finish the drawing and highlights with White Prismacolor Pencil.

Detail

More to come…

TD

ECCC 2014 - Ramona Flowers Sketch

Some pics of  the making of my Ramona Flowers sketch at Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, 2014.

Drawn on  11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper, I rough in the drawing with an Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil. Then I go straight to "inking" the outline of the drawing with a small tipped (Pitt XS) permanent pen (to avoid bleeding when I later use the Copics greys).

Then I rough in the values with Warp Grey Copics at this point, #2 and 3.

Nailing down more values with the Copics.

The final piece finished with a White Prismacolor Pencil.

Detail.

More to come.

TD

ECCC 2014 - Princess Sketch

Here's a little look behind how I made my Princess Anna sketch at Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, 2014.

Working on 11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper, I rough in the drawing with an Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil. Then I go straight to "inking" the outline of the drawing with a small tipped (Pitt XS) permanent pen (to avoid bleeding when I later use the Copics greys).

Next I use  Copic Warm Greys to render the figure and Pitt F, Copic .05, Pigma 1 Black Pens to finish drawing.

Here's the finished drawing.

I use White Prismacolor for highlights.

More ECCC sketches to come…

TD

CATWOMAN #29 Cover Step by Step

Here's a look of how the cover to Catwoman 29 was made…

This was the start of a new arc - which is just shipping today so I won't go into too many details - so I needed to come up with an idea that set's up this big competition.

My cover sketches I sent to Editor Rachel Gluckstern at DC Comics for approval.

They were

drawn at 2x3 inches in my sketchbook in pencil and Pitt/Pigma pens and Copic Grey Markers and then cleaned up and colored in Photoshop

Rachel had me do a couple more variations based off my initial two ideas and C was picked.

My  initial pencils, drawn in Light Blue and HB lead on 12 x 18 Bristol Board.

Finished enough pencils so Rachel Dodson can get moving on the inks

Rachel Dodson's initial inks  - using a Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable #2 Brush and Higgins Black Magic ink, plus a little tech pen and croquille for the straight lines.

I went back in and finished the flowers and the buildings in the background. Then Rachel finished inking.

A detail look at the inks. Do yourself a favor and soon in at the wallet, and the greys in the background behind the wallet to appreciate Rachel's inks!

The art is then scanned and cleaned in Photoshop.

Flats

The first stage of coloring is to have the art "flatted".

Flatting allows the colorist to choose an area to color at any point throughout the coloring process.

I knew pretty well what I wanted this one to look like from the start which is nice..

Initial roughing in of color - I use Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet.

Initial shadows and tweaking colors slightly. Add slight gradients to flat areas.

Getting the colors pretty close.

Start turning the black lines into colors lines - note the flesh lines/etc.

Final colors - corrected Catwoman's hair and added more highlights and shadows and added a cast shadow from Selina's hand and wallet that kinda focus the composition back on the wallet…

Also look at the middle right back part of the composition - who is the grumpy guy drinking his champagne?!

The cover is out in stores starting today!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

http://www.comicshoplocator.com/Home/1/1/57/575

And digitally at Comixology 

https://www.comixology.com/Catwoman-2011-29/digital-comic/83789

Enjoy!

TD

Blacksad Incentive Sketch for Juanjo Guarnido's Kickstarter

Here's the Blacksad drawing I did as an incentive for Blacksad artist's Juanjo Guarnido's Kickstarter - 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120326342/juanjo-guarnido-in-the-freak-kitchen

For more about Blacksad

http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/16-361/Blacksad-HC

 and Juanjo-

https://www.facebook.com/juanjo.guarnido.artist

Drawn on 9" x 12" Canson  Mi-Teintes Pastel Paper. I start off the drawing with a Col Erase Light Blue Pencil then outline the face and body with a Pitt XS Black Pen - which is small enough NOT to bleed when - I go in with the Copic Warm Grey 1 marker to rough in the initial values.

Detail on the head.

Pretty dang loose but I have an idea where I'm going...

Using Copic Warm Grey 204 Markers I begin refining the drawing and volumes. I also use the Pitt XS pen to nail down the remainder of the line art and some flowers to the drawing.

Details of the head - you can see I start picking out more of the important element of the drawing.

The final drawing - I used Copic Warm Grey 4 to nailed down the darker volumes. I used Pitt F and Zig Mangaka Flexible F to thicken and finalize the line art. And finally a Prismacolor White Pencil for the highlights.

Details of the final drawing.

About an hour start to finish.

TD

Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, March 28-30, 2014

Rachel and I will be attending Emerald City in Seattle.

Here's all the details 

The official site -

www.emeraldcitycomicon.com

WHERE/WHEN

Rachel and I will be seated in Artist's Alley, II-01 

Show hours are -

March 28 - 10:00AM to 7:00PM

March 29 - 10:00AM to 7:00PM
March 30 - 10:00AM to 5:00PM

We will be at the table at approximately those times but I will update via Twitter more exact schedule-

https://twitter.com/TerryDodsonArt

@TerryDodsonArt

SIGNING

I will be signing books/comics/statues/etc at my table the whole show and for free.

COMMISSION SKETCHES

I will take sketch requests all day Friday.

I will write down all names however I will be choosing myself who's sketch I'm drawing and if you had a sketch recently I won't be doing you a sketch so I can try to get sketches down for fans who I haven't done sketches for.

ECCC is a VERY busy con so I will only be producing about 5-10 sketches.

Sketches are $300 each for a single figure and $150 for a bust and sketch covers. 

ORIGINAL ART

I will be selling original art from X-Men, Catwoman, Songes/Muse, Avengers, Avenging Spider-Man, The Defenders, Uncanny X-Men, Wonder Woman and selected covers, pinups and sketches.

PRINTS/POSTCARDS

I will have the Rose City, Down Under, New York, San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, Paris and Seattle prints for sale. I will also have postcards of all available.

BOMBSHELLS 7

I will have these available in Seattle for the first time.

See you there!

TD

X-MEN 11 Cover Step by Step

Here's a look behind how the cover of X-MEN #11 was created - out in stores now from MARVEL COMICS and Brian Wood and Kris Anka and Clay Mann.

The  cover sketches I sent to Editor Tom Brennan at Marvel Comics for approval. This cover features the X-MEN villains  the Sisterhood, and introduces new look Selene and Madelyne Pryor (yes, it's legal to go ahead and GOOGLE these )

The sketches were

drawn at 2x3 inches in my sketchbook in pencil and Pitt/Pigma pens and Copic Grey Markers and then cleaned up and colored in Photoshop.

Kris Anka's design sketches of Selene and Madelyne.

Pencils - drawn in Light Blue and HB lead on 12 x 18 Bristol Board.

Detail of Madelyne pencils.

Rachel Dodson's inks - Rachel uses a Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable #2 Brush and Higgins Black Magic ink, plus a little tech pen and croquille for the straight lines.

Close up of inks.

Colors -  I use Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet to color the art.

Detail

My favorite part of the cover..

Print version.

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

http://www.comicshoplocator.com/Home/1/1/57/575

Or digitally at

https://www.comixology.com/X-Men-Vol-4-11/digital-comic/74214

TD