Uncanny X-Men #513 Cover Step by Step 2 - Heads

Even though the drawings of Prof X and Namor were solid I didn't think they looked like the characters so I redrew their faces substantially.

Daken (Wolverine) looked fine in the rough in so I just pushed his expression a bit more.

Finally, I really changed Dagger's hair and pose for the final look.

TD

Uncanny X-Men #513 Cover Step by Step 1 - Sketch and Rough In

So I sent Marvel two sketches - the first one echoed the Dark Avengers #1 cover (as this cover features the Dark X-Men) and the 2nd one with the orange color scheme. Marvel picked the #2 sketch.

I then roughed in the cover with Col Erase Light Blue Pencil and Staedtler HB lead on 13" X 19" Strathmore 500 Series 2 Ply Bristol Board.

WEEKEND REWIND Jazz Maynard by Roger & Raule

I always love going to Europe and picking up books - whether they're bandes dessinées (comics) or "art of" or sketchbooks, whatever - I always find something new or cool that I HAVE to lug back home with me.

The first one I'm going to mention (as I had never heard anything about it before) is a BD published by Dargaud called Jazz Maynard. I actually stumbled across the original artwork to the 3rd volume displayed at the convention in Barcelona and was immediately struck by the amazing line and control of the inks. I even took some pics (see above) of some my favorite panels. The explosions are terrific! Anyway, I left Barcelona without writing down the title or creator's names - fortunately I found the book prominently displayed at the Album shop in Paris and snagged it. As with most art, the original is always better than the reproduced piece and was glad I able to see the art in person.

I can't say I've discovered too much more about it since, but I did figure out that it was the third volume so there are two earlier ones to get.

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X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 11 Color - Final FX

With about 25 minutes to finish up the cover I finished Gambit's glowing fx with the Airbrush tool on a Screen Layer at 50% and then added reflective light on him from the glow.

On Rogue, colorized her white hair and irises.

And finally on the flames used the Airbrush on both the line art and on bits of the flame for the glow effect.

OK, that's it for now on this piece - I assume you are as sick of seeing it as me!

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X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 10 Color - Background

Again, with trying to wrap up the cover as fast as possible - I moved to knocking out the background line art to pop out the foreground characters.

This was done on a separate Screen Layer.

TD

X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 9 Color - Reflective light and coloring line art

The clock was really ticking on the deadline at this point so I went in and really finished up Rogue's face. I selected and colored the skin line art (on a separate Screen layer) and added the next level of detail to her face.

I started adding reflective lighting to Rogue's costume picking up the flames and her face reflecting on the top of her chest.

I also pushed the next level of rendering on her costumes, a few more darks and lights that added the warmth of the flames.

Also, I didn't like how the flames looked, so I added depth to them by separating them into a fore-, middle- and background elements - and this really helped. I also started colorizing the line art on them as well.

Finally, I added another laying of rendering to Gambit and Danger. I used a combination of the Pencil tool at Normal 100% and Multipy at 50%.

At this point there are only two layers - one is the background layer for all the coloring and the next a Screen layer for the coloring the line art.

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X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 9 Color - Gambit/Danger

So, now that the main elements are set, I start to rough in the colors on Gambit and Danger.

I then took Rogue to the next stage of rendering.

Also, I added a bit of color to the smoke cloud.

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X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 8 Color - Fire!

So before I got too far ahead of myself, I decided that the main foreground element - the fire - had better be established!

First, I flatted the whole fire area with a darker orange.

Next, using the Brush tool - with the "Rolled Rag" brush - I stamped in the fire effect and colors from dark to light and red orange to hot yellow white. Also, a little bit of the Pencil tool set at multiply at 50% or so to smooth out the blends.

Now, this gave me something to play off on the rest of the piece - however I wasn't happy with the fire and ended up changing at a later stage - you'll see.

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X-Men Legacy 226 Cover Step by Step 7 Color - Rough in

This cover was colored very quickly so try not to do what I did - I simply colored what needed to be colored for most impact and will touch up later.

First thing I did was to set up a medium value on all the colors ( an imprimatura in painting speak). This sets up a nice base value in which I-

Then put in initial lights and darks on Rogue as she is the main feature of the cover - even in the sketch.

I color mostly with the Pencil tool on normal at 100% as it has a hard edge so it can be reselected later - especially at this stage. I'm worried about getting the values and colors correct not worrying about edges/blends. This is how I was taught to paint and so I use the same approach in PS.

TD

Uncanny X-Men #511 out this week

I helped out Greg Land with an art assist on Uncanny X-Men 511 and drew the last 2 pages for this week's issue.

TD