X-Men Wedding Special Cover Step by Step Part 2 Line Art

Here's a look at how we made the cover art for X-Men Wedding Special out now from Marvel Comics.

PART 2

LINE ART

Rachel Dodson inks directly over my pencils...

Rachel inks with a Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable #2 Brush and Royal Talens Black Ink.

Using whites in the black areas to create depth

See how she makes the grey using feather lines...

Artwork is scanned into Photoshop at 800dpi Gray full size. I then go in and convert to Bitmap and clean to prepare for....

COLOR

Next time in

PART 3

And

PART 1

PENCILS

TD

X-Men Wedding Special Cover Step by Step Part 1

Here's a look at how we made the cover art for X-Men Wedding Special out now from Marvel Comics.

PART 1

PENCILS

COVER SKETCH

The cover concept I sent into Marvel Comics for approval. 

Roughs were drawn at 2" x 3" in my sketchbook using Warm Grey Copics then colored in Photoshop CS3.

INITIAL PENCILS

Lots of fun to draw this one with two of my favorite X-Men to draw!

Drawn in Light Blue on 13" x 19" Bristol Board. 

I draw with Col Erase Light Blue Pencil and Staedtler HB Lead Pencil. 

I have a LONG history with Kitty Pryde, she was in my very first Marvel Comic I drew, Excalibur #83 and she has shown up in about every X-Men related thing I've done over 20+ years of drawing them.

FINAL PENCILS

This is a piece that I could see very clearly what I would do in color.

Now, all ready for Rachel Dodson to ink...

Next time, 

INKS

in 

PART 2

TD

MAGIK from EMERALD CITY COMIC CON March 2015

So here we go with the first sketch Seattle's ECCC - MAGIK!

Drawn on 12 x 16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper with Col Erase Scarlet Red Pencil, Pitt XS F Black Pen, Copic Warm Grey 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and White and Red Prismacolor Pencil.

This started out as a Kitty Pryde sketch by mistake - I read Magik on the sketch list and said,"Yeah, Kitty sounds fun!"

Thus, Illyana snarky remark to  Kitty popped into my head.

I love drawing Magik - one of favorite comics of all time is NEW MUTANT SPECIAL drawn by Art Adams and Terry Austin featuring a kick butt Illyana! And Olivier Coipel did an amazing cover of her a few years back.

More to come!

TD

Death of Wolverine #1 Variant Cover Step by Step Part 1 LINEART

This is how we made the variant cover to Death of Wolverine #1 Cover art.

The idea behind this cover was "the women of Wolverine" - which ended up featuring Jean Grey, Storm, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde and Mariko - tried to squeeze in a few more but just too busy for me...

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

After getting appr0val from Marvel Editor George Beliard and Mike Marts I moved on to pencils...

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

Detail of Wolverine.

Rachel Dodson inks

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

Detail of Rachel's inks...

Then scan and clean in Photoshop

Next Time...

COLORS!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

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

And digitally at 

https://www.comixology.com/Death-of-Wolverine-1-of-4/digital-comic/135396?ref=c2VyaWVzL3ZpZXcvZGVza3RvcC9saXN0L0lzc3Vlcw

TD

Legendary Star-Lord #1 Variant Cover Step by Step Part THREE COLORS

Here's a look of how we created the Variant Cover to Legendary Star-Lord #1 by Marvel Comics.

The book is out now written by Sam Humphries and drawn by Paco Medina.

Now for part three - my color process...

FLATS - there is where the magic starts,

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.

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, just focusing on Kitty Pryde here. Done in Photoshop CS3 with a Wacom Cintiq 13HD. I add darker values first and then the lighter values.

Moving right along - adding a little rendering to all the characters and starting to get the background where I want it - coloring coloring coloring...

I then move right into altering the lineart to color.

Detail of working of the lineart

Here are the final colors 

Details of the final colors

And how it looked in print!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

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

And digitally at 

https://www.comixology.com/Legendary-Star-Lord-1/digital-comic/114525

TD

Legendary Star-Lord #1 Variant Cover Step by Step Part TWO INKS

Here's a look of how we created the Variant Cover to Legendary Star-Lord #1 by Marvel Comics.

The book is out now written by Sam Humphries and drawn by Paco Medina.

Now for part two - the inks by Rachel Dodson…

The final art inked directly over my pencils on 12 x 18 Bristol Board

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

Kitty Pryde...

Rocket…

And last but not least, Star-Lord. The stars in the background were created using Pro White and Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable #2 Brush.

The foreground objects were inked by Rachel and me (I'm using Pitt F and B pens plus a little Pro White). It's fun having our signature worked into the artwork, this time in the beer pull in the foreground, DODSON'S STELLAR.

Next time - the COLORS!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

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

And digitally at 

https://www.comixology.com/Legendary-Star-Lord-1/digital-comic/114525

TD

Legendary Star-Lord #1 Variant Cover Step by Step Part ONE Pencils

Here's a look of how we created the Variant Cover to Legendary Star-Lord #1 by Marvel Comics.

The book is out now written by Sam Humphries and drawn by Paco Medina.

So we start off with the initial stage of creating the cover, the pencils...

This is Variant Cover for Midtown Comics - I was given the assignment of Rocket Raccoon hitting on Kitty Pryde with a stunned Star-Lord entering the scene -  fun stuff!

These are sketches I sent in to Mike Marts at Marvel.

These 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.

This is one of those covers where I know exactly what I want so I dive straight into it!

My  initial pencils, drawn in Light Blue and HB lead on 12 x 18 Bristol Board. I was happy with everyone but wasn't sold on Kitty Pryde's expression and this cover is all about acting...

So did some refining and a 2nd pass on Kitty, but the expression was good - she got a little too goofy looking.

So, my 3rd attempt at Kitty - success!

Nailed down the rest of the details - easy!!!

Details

Next time - Rachel's Inks!

You can find this comic at your local comic book retailer

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

And digitally at 

https://www.comixology.com/Legendary-Star-Lord-1/digital-comic/114525

TD

Kitty Pryde Sketch San Diego Comic Con 2013 STEP BY STEP

Here's a little look behind how I made my Kitty Pryde and Lockheed sketch at Comic Con Int'l, 2013.

Working on 11 x16 Canson Mi-teintes Paper, I rough in the drawing with an Col Erase Light Blue Pencil. Then I go straight to "inking" the outline of the drawing with a small tipped (S, .005, .3) permanent pen (to avoid bleeding when I later use the Copics greys).

Once the drawing is outlined, I commence with Copic Warm Greys, generally on colored paper, I start with #2.

I use through #2 -#4 greys then start putting in the blacks as they are major part of this piece and alter the greys.

More details with the greys- and darker - up to #6 with the shadow areas.

Start using a White Prismacolor pencil for highlights.

Et voila, c'est fini!

More to come...

TD