The Bombshellter

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

X-Men #8 Cover Step by Step

Here's a look behind how the cover of X-Men #8 was created (out in stores this week from Marvel Comics - written by Brian Wood with art by me, Rachel Dodson, Jason Keith and Barry Kitson).

The first step is to send in cover sketches to X-Men Editor Jeanine Schaeffer. The idea was to introduce Monet to the book.

Jeanine liked the idea of showing Monet's strength which I show in "C" but she suggested having her crush the "X-Men" logo - great idea.

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

It was decided to skip the other "X" characters as we we're really up against the deadline on this one.

I worked out the broken "X-Men" logo on tracing paper.

The final pencils which I gave to ….

Rachel Dodson to ink. Rachel's inks with 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.

The art is then scanned and cleaned in Photoshop and then we go to color...

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.

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

Added the "explosive" background in.

Have the character more accurately reflect the environment. I also began turning areas of the line art into color lines.

Cleaning up the background.

Adding shadows and highlights to the X-MEN logo and cast shadows and highlights on to Monet from the logo.

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

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

And digitally at

http://www.comixology.com/X-Men-Vol-4-8/digital-comic/58398

Saturday, December 14, 2013

My studio, Periscope Studio, has a Kickstarter Campaign going on right now.

It's a series of artbooks from the members of Periscope Studio.

This project will fund the printing of six limited-edition full-color art books, each representing the work of a member of Periscope Studio: Ron Randall (Trekker), Paul Guinan (Boilerplate), David Hahn (Erfworld), Natalie Nourigat (Home Is Where the Internet Is), Erika Moen (Oh Joy, Sex Toy), and Benjamin Dewey (The Tragedy Series).

It's down to the final 5 days - check out the campaign and REWARDS here-

http://kck.st/HXC8bq

Monday, December 9, 2013

Catwoman 25 Step by Step

Here's how the cover for DC Comics Catwoman 25, out in stores now, was created by Rachel and I.

These are the sketches I sent in to Catwoman Editor Rachel Gluckstern at DC Comics for approval. The theme was Catwoman Zero Year - Catwoman before she was Catwoman. These cover sketches were all well received but the story was very cat-centric so I was asked to include more cats on the cover and so...

A was picked so on to the pencils….

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

Here's my initial pencils still wrapping up details.

Almost final pencils - I had to go to Comic Con, so I needed Rachel to start inking so….

She inked a little and then I finished up the cat details - including the foreground cat - based on our cat "Chubs"

"Chubs"

Since Rachel was inking this at home while I was in San Diego she was asking questions

Questions

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

The final inks.

Scanned and cleaned in Photoshop by Rachel.

The FLAT stage

My initial rough in of the colors, done in Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet.

Polishing the colors.

Turning the lineart into color lines.

The final version of the colors - note the cat in from the of the mystery figure has it's tail now "docked", to make it look like one of our cats, so all the kitties in this piece are based on cats we have had.

Ok, that all folks!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

X-Men #7 Cover Step by Step Creation

Here's how I created the cover to X-Men #7, now in stores from Marvel Comics. Written by Brian Wood, Inks by Rachel Dodson, Colors by Jason Keith and interiors by me!

First thing was to come up with a cover sketch - and character design simultaneously! This is the very first appearance of the Lady Deathstrike. Brian Woods gave me some suggestions and I ran with it.

These sketches were submitted to Editor Jeanine Schaefer.

They were

drawn at 2x3 inches in my sketchbook in pencil and pen and then cleaned up and colored in Photoshop.

Jeanine asked that I go with a more close up version and these are what I came up with.

It was decided to go with "H".

I began penciling the cover with light blue and HB lead on 12 x 18" Bristol Board. This is interesting as I'm still designing the look of the character as I'm drawing this - welcome to the world of mainstream comics :-)