Here's a look of how the cover to Catwoman 31 was made…
the colors...
The first stage of coloring is to have the art "flatted".
Flatting allows me to choose an area to color at any point throughout the coloring process - which is really helpful when you've almost finished coloring the art and realize red and blue of Mirror Master should really be orange and green - see below :-)
At this stage I go and adjust the colors to their medium value or imprimatura - I use this as the starting point.
My initial rough in of the colors, done in Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet. I add darker values first and then the lighter values.
This one moved along pretty quickly … I add the cast shadow of Catwoman - two reasons - it should be there and it really helps frame the action and composition!
I also begin turning the lineart in to colored lineart...
After I turn in the initial colors - it occured to me to add more mirror elements to pay off/clarify the mirror idea and to complete the composition.
Finally, I blur/brighten the reflection to give a little more reality to the reflection without just simply making the black lines grey or blue.
How it turned out in print!
Cover is out in stores now...
You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer
And digitally at Comixology
Enjoy!
TD
The creativity you showed on this cover is outstanding, and just with pictures you told the story of trust, betrayal, surprise and forthcoming action. Well done and keep up the good work Mr. Dodson!
ReplyDeleteThanks, appreciate it!
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