These thumbnails and yesterday’s were the first I did. Adam and Dan commented on them and I came up with a second set. The first two of those will get posted tomorrow.
Covering the Ghouls – Part 1
Coming up with a front cover illustration was more challenging than coming up with the back cover illustration. Not surprising. Most people would never take a look at the back cover if they hadn’t found the front cover intriguing. A front cover has to catch a buyer’s eye. It can’t be too busy or the mind will take too long to register it. It can’t be too simple or the mind won’t be interested.
I started the process by doing a series of thumbnails that I ran past Dan, the author, and Adam, our editor/publisher. This is the first one. I’ll be showing the others over the next few days.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 12
And we’re done.
This illustration will be on the back cover of Dan Harms’ sourcebook on Ghouls published by Sixtystone Press (no website yet) in early 2009.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 11
More shading. More highlighting. Almost done.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 10
Like I said, things went pretty quickly with this version. Here we see a mix of additional shadows and highlights.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 9
Work went pretty quickly from here. I copied over the flat colors the Photoshop file of my earlier attempt at coloring this image. I had to make a few adjustments since the new scan didn’t match the scan of the original pencils. And, obviously, some of the colors needed to be changed to go with the new base colors.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 8
Having decided that the previous coloring track wasn’t working I stepped away from the computer and went back to work on the original pencil illustration. I put my colored pencils to work. I tossed down some solid black lines. Things started looking better already.
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 7
This is the point where I decided that, really, more work in this direction wasn’t going to produce the result I was looking for. The art was muddy and lacked contrast and just seemed sloppy. While it was possible I might eventually get a piece I liked I’d be getting there by trial and error and it would probably take more time than was sensible. So I had to go back to the original drawing.
No posts tomorrow or Sunday. It’s a busy busy weekend, the capper of which will be the Bro getting married in California on Sunday night. Since I’m flying back Monday morning and putting in a full day at work afterwards I may not post on Monday either. Sorry about that.
A Brief Aside
It still feels weird when I run into one of my illustrations in an unexpected place. Of course, without the stories there’d be no illustration, so good work and thank you to David and John!
Backing Up the Ghouls – Part 6
More texture and shading added. The pattern on the ghoul’s robe is a transparent layer of snakeskin.
