Belladonna Print

Each Year I create a new limited edition signed and numbered 11" x 11" print. The tradition started many years ago when Julia urged me to create a new print for a convention or event that was 'just pretty'. She thought that we had plenty of images of mice wielding swords and threatening snakes and owls––that the audience, especially women, appreciated when I just drew tender moments, or nature, or flowers.  I followed her advice, and for years now fans have proven her right by anticipating and purchasing the new square print I offer.

This year the piece is titled 'Belladonna'. Below I'll show the step-by-step of creating the art.

This piece started more with the character––the mouse is the Matriarch Siobhan (seen in the Black Axe hardcover extras and she will be explored more in the upcoming Dawn of the Black Axe mini series coming out this year). As a Matriarch she was a healer, but there's something about her I always saw as ominous––hence the pairing with Belladonna; a flowering plant known for being poisonous, but also historically used in small doses medically. I drew Sibhan & some of the plant life on a single piece of copy paper, then drew more of the Belladonna on another sheet with the first drawing on a lightpad. Those were then scanned and assembled and I did a quick color blocking to be sure the overall composition was to my liking.

I printed out the above layout composite and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion A3 Lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use as a guide for inking. I used a Copic Multiliner SP 0.7 pen.

Lots of the inking was just about weighting the contour lines and only using texture sparingly (like the density of the veins in the leaves, the spots of the blooms, the shading on the berries, and the embroidery on her stole.

When the inks were finished and scanned, I could start the coloring process. The first step to that is called 'flatting' which is where you paint in all the areas with flat colors only. It's about establishing easy to grab and re-isolate areas for the later step of rendering. Think of it as a professional version of digitally coloring in the lines.

I also added color holds (areas where I want the linework to be a color other than black) to the leaf veins, the spots on the blooms, the berry highlights, and the chalice details.

Some of the color palette was already dictated by the character's look in Dawn of the Black Axe and the belladonna coloring was inspired from several photos found online.

The last step was to render the color with shadows, highlights, and texture. I do most of that work with the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop, though I did use a soft paintbrush here and there and several areas where I shifted the color of an area when I had it lassoed (with a feathered edge).
The Belladonna print will be signed and numbered, available at ECCC next month and then in my online store afterwards.

As this is the 14th year I've been doing these, here are the past year's 11x11 limited prints (many of which are available in a bundle in my online store) and links to blogposts for these pieces below

2012 Peacock

2013 Raspberry

2014 Moonflower

2015 Lavender

2016 Juniper

2017 Rose

2018 Elderberry

2019 Teasel

2020 Sharon

2021 Yarrow

2022 Pinecone

2023 Clematis
2024 Foxglove

2025 Bookplate

 Every year since 2012 I do a new Mouse Guard bookplate for sale at conventions and in my online store. The idea is that this mini-print can be pasted/taped into your book(s), you can write your name in to identify it as yours to borrowers, and since the bookplates are signed, it means you now have a signed book. I try and make each year's bookplate art some medium the mice would/could use. I've done stained glass, relief printing, embroidery, mosaic, etc in past years––this year I was inspired by relief stone carving.

The bookplate will be made available at Emerald City Comic Con and then in my online store shortly after.

The process started when I was wowed by a photo of a restoration/recreation of facade from Louis Sullivan's Gage building. I did some clay relief carving in college this reminded me of. I ended up cutting up the reference photo and making it into a new configuration and then I went about sketching some mice––specifically a scene of the first Matriarch and founding Guardmice as documented in Jeremy Bastian's Legends of the Guard tale.

With this year (in May) being the 20th anniversary of Mouse Guard, I thought showing the in-world founding of the Mouse Guard in stone would be a nice touch. The pencil sketch was quickly digitally blocked in with some greyscale values for reference for the next step.

I printed out the above layout and on my Huion Lightpad I was able to transfer the basic drawing in pencil on the lightpad.  Below you can see three stages of me slowly shading in the areas of the drawing with graphite while using an eraser to pull highlights and a tortillon to smudge and blend the greys.

When I finished that process I carefully cleaned up the outer edges with an eraser and then scanned the piece in greyscale.

To tighten up the value range I adjusted the levels to set the darkest point and lightest point and fiddle with a midrange until I got what looked right to me.

I contemplated leaving the art this way for the bookplate, but decided to add a little bit of tone and color.

So in Photoshop I did just that. The final bookplate has been printed and as I said above will debut at Emerald City Comic Con in March (booth 20505) and then be made available in my online store sometime shortly afterward.

Here are all the past years Bookplates––many of which are available in my online store as a bundle (https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/set-of-10-mouse-guard-bookplates). Below are the blogposts about the process of making each:

Blogposts:
2012 – Lino Print
2013 – Stained Glass
2014 – Embroidery
2015 – Mosaic
2016 – Pencil Rendering
2017 – Engraving
2018 – Wood Painting
2019 – Gouache Painting
2020 – Wood Carving
2021 – Lino Registration Print
2022 – Stained Glass
2023 –– Gouache Painting on Canvas

2024 –– Encaustic Tile

Dawn of the Black Axe #1 Petersen Cover

As recently announced, Dawn of the Black Axe is a 3 issue mini series written and colored by me and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key) about the first wielder of the Black Axe! 

It's up for preorder now in local and online comic shops (JAN250017 for my cover) And I wanted to use this post to share a deeper dive into the cover art for cover B (there is also a Gabriel Rodriguez cover as well as another guest variant)

To the left you can see my finished cover with logo etc, but below I'll go through the art steps.

I gave Gabe the big snake battle cover and I opted to focus on the lore of the story. Fans of Mouse Guard may know I've dropped hints about the legend of the Black Axe through my first two books and a short story the Axe Trio, but also in a whole volume called The Black Axe (which is about Celanawe, the 10th wielder of the weapon).

I drew Farrer (based on Gabe's designs of the character) the axe's smith bestowing it on Bardrick while that moment in encircled in a a medieval halo design. The background is also the Adana Tapestry (something like our world's Bayeux tapestry showing the story of the Axe) that leads to the point Bardrick kneels upon––where he receives the axe. This was all done on various sheets of copy paper, scanned and assembled in Photoshop with some blocked in color shapes.

With the above layout in a state that I liked, I printed it out on copy paper (two sheets of legal paper trimmed and taped together after printing to fit the whole image) and taped to the back of a sheet of 13" x 13" Strathmore bristol (art size is 12" x 12").

I inked the piece on my Huion lightpad where I can see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use as a guide while I inked. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 nib mostly)

Lots of texture in this piece, and in black and while it's a little too busy, but I know I'm going to add color to al lot of that linework to add clarity.

The inks were then scanned in and I started the coloring process. The first step is called flatting, basically a color-in-the-lines for professionals with flat base colors (no shading or textures.)

The colors of the characters and the tapestry were already known from coloring the issue and the Black Axe volume, but it still took a lot of careful tweaking to get the saturations and values all right.

Here I also established color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) on the tapestry embroidery, and a few different hols on the halo.

To render the color I used Photoshop's dodge and burn tools with a textured brush to get the highlights, shadows and textures.

Below is the solicitation info for the first issue that will be in shops March 19th, 2025:

CODE: JAN250017 (Petersen cover)

(W) David Petersen (A) Gabriel Rodriguez

The origins of the legendary Black Axe are revealed for the very first time!In celebration of its 20th Anniversary, experience the earliest tale in Mouse Guard history...

Adventure with the ancient weapon's first mouse wielder and champion, Bardrick, as he sets off on an epic quest in the newest installment of the Harvey Award-winning series by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen and Eisner-nominated artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key)!

Dawn of the Black Axe #1 Rodriguez Cover

Announced a few weeks ago Dawn of the Black Axe is a 3 issue mini series written and colored by me and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key) about the first wielder of the Black Axe! 

It's up for preorder now in local and online comic shops (JAN250016 for the Gabe cover) And I wanted to use this post to share a deeper dive into the cover art for cover A (I also have a variant cover and there will be at least one other guest artist for each issue)

Gabe agreed to do the project, but really wanted me to be the colorist. It's been the hardest coloring work I've ever done...

The cover art was created after the first issue was already drawn. I co-ordinated with Gabe letting him know what scene/visual I thought he should focus on and also what I was going to do for my cover (that way if he wanted to do something beyond my suggestion, he knew what I was doing to avoid overlap).

This series really leans into snake battles (if you know the Black Axe lore from the illuminated pages in Fall you understand) and I asked for the big confrontation for this issue. Gabe sent over pencils, and then this amazingly clean and detailed inked art. 

While the interior pages were all drawn & inked, I had yet to finish the colors on the issue––importantly, I hadn't yet colored this scene, so the cover is were some of the color choices were made. Bardrick (first wielder of the Black Axe) had a color scheme and so did the snake (Gammeltann) and the elk, but what colors the backround were and how that may alter the hue and saturation of my established character base colors was something I figured out with the cover first.

This flat color stage is where all the color shapes are established, a coloring-in-the-lines for pros. I also established the color holds, which is where I want the lineart to be a color other than black. In this case I made color holds for the elk, the snake's eye, and the puffs of dust.

Rendering (adding shadows, highlights, & textures) has proven to take much longer for me on Gabe's inks than on my own. I think part of that is the realism of forms in Gabe's work requires a different style of lighting. He also tends to have a lot more degrees of depth in a panel, where I almost always break forms into 2 or 3 planes.

To render the color I used a bit of a painbrush tool (something I don't often do on my own work) to get some color transitions, then Photoshop's dodge and burn tools with a textured brush.

Below is the solicitation info for the first issue that will be in shops March 19th, 2025:

CODE: JAN250016
(W) David Petersen (A/CA) Gabriel Rodriguez

The origins of the legendary Black Axe are revealed for the very first time!In celebration of its 20th Anniversary, experience the earliest tale in Mouse Guard history...
Adventure with the ancient weapon's first mouse wielder and champion, Bardrick, as he sets off on an epic quest in the newest installment of the Harvey Award-winning series by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen and Eisner-nominated artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key)!

Ivory Mouse Carving Illustration

In the past few weeks I have been sent photos of this Japanese carving from several friends, professional peers, and fans. I did a little research and found it is ivory and black coral (for the eyes), a little over 2" tall, from the late 19th century and is in a private collection.

Many years ago a similar thing happened when I was repeatedly sent a photo of a weasel riding a woodpecker, and decided to draw it as that event would happen in Mouse Guard (Blogpost for that piece: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2015/05/weasel-rinding-woodpecker.html)...so, here we go again, I've made an illustration of this mouse and broken down the steps to create the illustration below.

I started with a pencil drawing on copy paper where I tried to keep the pose very close to the carving and only imposing some of my Mouse Guard proportions and flourishes on him. For a setting/background, I opted for the kind of gnarled tangled branch of a flowering tree you often see in Japanese lacquered panels, block prints, and paintings.

The paper was scanned and in Photoshop I gave it all a quick color blocking (mainly to help me to better see the petals from the tree and the rocks from the soil. I also digitally blocked in a circle for a setting sun.

With a layout for the piece I liked, I sized it to 8" x 8" and printed it out on my inkjet printer. That was then taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series smooth bristol. On my Huion lightpad I can see through the bristol surface down to the printout to use as a guide while inking. 

The inks were all done with a Copic Multiliner SP 0.7 pen. The time consuming part of the inking was all the texture on the tree. When inking the clothing patterns, I found a website that had several photos of the carving from different angles to use as better reference (https://www.buddhamuseum.com/traveller-mouse_13.html)

When the inks were finished, I scanned them in to Photoshop and started the coloring process. That first step (after cleaning up the scan so the inkwork is crisp) is called 'flatting'. This is where each area is established with a flat base color; no texture & no shading. It's a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. I went with warm colors overall to harken back to the soft warmth in the ivory carving. 

At this stage, I also established color holds, areas where I want the inklines to be a color other than black. In this case that meant the sun outline and the clothing patterns.

The last step was to render the color by adding shadows and highlights and texture. I do most all of this with Photoshop's Dodge and Burn tools with a stock textured brush.

This was a fun piece to do really just for the fun of it. I know many fans have asked if I'll ever do Mouse Guard stories set in Asia, and while I don't plan to, perhaps this will please their curiosity for such a thing.

This piece will be included in my next Mouse Guard sketchbook that I hope to release later this year.

Welcoming Artists into the Guard

In the weeks since we announced the new Mouse Guard mini-series Dawn of the Black Axe, which while written & colored by me, will be drawn by master inkslinger Gabriel Rodriguez, I've seen comments online about me not drawing it or wondering what it must have taken for me to give over so much creative control to another artist.

I wanted to do a post to assure everyone that I will still be writing AND drawing my own Mouse Guard books (Weasel War––with a still unknown completion date), but also that the Mouse Territories are a place I've welcomed in over 50 artists or writers to contribute stories, pinups, or covers even before I asked Gabriel to draw this story.

To celebrate the artists who have already donned a Guard cloak and entered Lockhaven, Here's a past blogpost that features them all https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2019/11/thankful-for-mouse-guard-contributors.html

Though, I do want to acknowledge a difference; Legends of the Guard was meant to be an anthology where the guest stories are tall tales and folklore, and this Dawn of the Black Axe series (hopefully the first in a long line of artists exploring past wielders of the Black Axe) is cannon. It's also why I handpicked Gabriel. He is an unparalleled draftsman, an auteur storyteller, and a wonderful friend...we've wanted to work on a project together for years, and this was one worth waiting for.

As a note, I have a limited number of the Legends of the Guard boxed set in my online store for sale (all the books are signed by me) mouseguard.bigcartel.com

And there have been many past blogposts about Legends of the Guard to go back to or discover as we get closer to Dawn of the Black Axe's release (and therefore subsequent Blogposts with behind the scenes, process, interviews, etc.)

davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Legends

Blog Index Updated

Since I started this Blog in 2007, there have been hundreds of posts about art process, ideas, advice, cover work, illustration projects, and lots of Mouse Guard.

I've updated the Blog's index (something 18 months past-due)   

Perhaps there are posts you've missed, or forgotten about, or you're new to my work and would like to go back and look at posts.

https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2019/12/blog-index.html

Included in the update are Magic the Gathering pieces, TMNT illustrations, Usagi Yojimbo covers & a pinup, Discovering Dragons, Mouse Guard prints, and much more.

Enjoy the new year everyone!

Happy 2025

It's New Year's Eve––and just in a matter of hours, it will be 2025. While, as I always do, I have concerns going into this circuit around the sun, I'm also pleased that this year will mark the 20th anniversary of when I self-published the first issue of Mouse Guard.

To the left you can see a little illustration I did between Christmas and New Years of a very David Petersen-eque mouse riding a frog. May we be the mice atop a frog mount leaping into 2025 and hopefully hopping over as many of our obstacles as possible.

Below in this blogpost I go through the art steps to create the piece.

Rough:
I decided it would be nice to have a mouse on a mount, and I've done a fair number of mice on birds in recent years, and somehow I arrived at the alternative for a frog. I looked at reference for a leopard frog (native here in Michigan) and drew it on a sheet of copy paper. On a lightpad I then placed a new sheet of copy paper overtop to draw a mouse with some sort of basket-saddle.

The two drawings were scanned and assembled in Photoshop (tinted different colors). I then did a little digital drawing and warped both the Mouse Guard emblem and '2025' to fit the banner.

Inks:
I printed out the above layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol. On my lightpad I could see through the bristol surface to the layout beneath to use as a guide as I inked. I used a Copic Multiliner 0.7 SP pen.

The reason I inked the Mouse Guard emblem on the banner was so I could use this art piece again at some point (as well as sell the original without the date connotations) The 2025 was inked separately on another small piece of bristol. The little lines above the numbers were there to help me register them back up to the crossbar of the banner.

Flats:
With the inks scanned I started the process to color this piece called 'flatting' Flatting is basically a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines to establish with flat colors where all the color areas are (the fur is different than the hat is different than the frog is different from the banner, is different from the other banner, etc). I flatted this with the 2025 numbers properly registered back in place.

Also at this stage I established color holds, areas where I want the ink lines to be a color other than black like the numbers and the frog's eye and spots.

Final colors:
The last step was to render the finished colors. I do so using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop while also using a stock textured brush. The colors here are very different from the flats, and I did get them all adjusted closer to what you see here before I started adding shadows and highlights.

So, Happy 2025––Happy 20th Anniversary year from Mouse Guard, which is as much a celebration of all you fans who have enjoyed and supported it!

Dawn of the Black Axe Announced!

 Last week we announced a new Mouse Guard series called 'Dawn of the Black Axe' where the origins of the legendary Black Axe are revealed in this prequel story set in the earliest point in the Mouse Guard history with the ancient weapon’s first mouse wielder and champion, Bardrick.

I am writing and coloring this book and I handpicked the amazing Gabriel Rodriguez to drawn it. He's been an amazing collaborator and have been very kind as I attempted to write a script for someone other than myself. The series will be three issues and start in March of 2025.

This series will have 3 main covers per issue, Gabe's cover, My cover, and a Guest Variant.
Like the interiors, I also colored Gabe's covers. And here are the covers and order codes for mine and Gabe's (I'll do future blogposts as we get closer to release with process breakdowns for these)

Gabriel Rodriguez cover
Diamond Order Code: JAN250016

David Petersen cover
Diamond Order Code: JAN250017

The variant for this issue will be by Goni Montes and has not yet been revealed (though the order code for Diamond is JAN250018

Gabe and I were asked for some quotes, and I'll pepper those between the inked preview pages below that were shared around on various other comic sites--I can't show more of the finished work now, but I can tell you that I've sweated every moment as I colored these. 

David: Getting to write this Mouse Guard lore of the forging of the Black Axe and it being handed to Bardrick (first of eleven wielders) while getting to do so with the brilliant Gabriel Rodríguez drawing Dawn of the Black Axe has been a thrill,

David: “He’s going above and beyond with his inked pages and storytelling...while I’m just trying to keep up coloring them and still do them justice.

David: Gabe was top of my list when we started pitching names for this spin off project, and I postponed it for a long time until his schedule opened up––I didn’t want to do this first one with anyone else. 

David: I’ll continue to work on the next volume in the main Mouse Guard series: The Weasel War of 1149, but I also hope this is first of many more Mouse Guard books like this one, where I get to explore the other past wielders of the Black Axe with exciting and extremely talented collaborators like Gabe.”

Gabe: I’ve been a fan of David Petersen’s work since the first time I saw a volume of his astonishing Mouse Guard books. We became friends as soon as we met,

Gabe: Almost a decade ago we started daydreaming about working together on the story of the first wielder of the mythical Black Axe. That dream finally came true, and I’m humbled, grateful and excited to share it with the faithful legion of Mouse Guard readers.

-------------------

MOUSE GUARD: DAWN OF THE BLACK AXE #1 will be available in comic shops March 19, 2025. It is available for pre-order at your local comic shop. Digital copies can be purchased from content providers, including Kindle, iBooks, and Google Play.

Gilkey Warlocks Page breakdowns

Last month Nick Kowalcyk, Mike Davis, & I got together in Flint, MI to celebrate Jesse Glenn's 50th birthday with him. The four of us were very close friends back in high school, and variations of us have appeared in many Plotmasters Project creations, Mouse Guard, and most unabashedly––in Gotham Academy.

This recent reunion made me think it would be a good time to revisit the story on my blog. Below are my 'Gilkey Warlocks' pages broken down into roughs, pencils, greyscale, & final color. 

Page 1 Roughs:
For the hallway I made a little paper model (though the checkered floor was digitally added in). With this story being for DC and having a proper editorial process (unlike my creator-owned Mouse Guard pages) I had to send roughs in for approval.

Page 1 Pencils:
Because I was worried about smudging up a rendered pencil panel when working on an adjacent one, I decided to draw them all separately, drawing a little bit of overlap to make sure there wasn't going to be a gap between panels.

Page 1 Greyscale:

The pencils were all assembled in Photoshop and then masked off to conform to their appropriate panel shape. I added in borders digitally.

Page 1 Final Colors:
Using different layer modes I was able to color over the top of my greyscale page to essentially tint the image like a colorized black and white photo.

Page 2 Roughs:

The Serpents and Spells RPG name had already been established in the pages of Gotham Academy––but not what the cover of a 1984 era players handbook would look like, so I got to do a fun cover treatment and then paste it in.  I also photographed a huge D20 rather than drawing an icosahedron from scratch.

Page 2 Pencils:

Getting pencils this dark was difficult––I suspect that the file I opened to show you this already had some heavy level adjustments done to darken those darkest darks. On some of the panels I added in little crop marks to know where the panel borders were as I was drawing it, but also to know where to crop it when making the greyscale composite.

Page 2 Greyscale:

All assembled with some added in digital black space in the areas around the last 5 panels.
The digital borders on this included another dashed line between a panel and the zoom-in, something I enjoyed on the first page and continued here.

Page 2 Final Colors:
Keen eyed viewers will notice that on page 1 Jonathan Crane's name was on the secret door, and here we find an abandoned room with chemistry equipment and an erlenmeyer flask with 'FEAR TOXIN' on the label––and there goes Davey (Mike Davis) blowing off all that dust on the table into the air... 

Page 3 Roughs:
These pencils got a healthy amount of digital help when it came time for me to visualize the animated shadows growing off the kids, and then forming into Serpents and Spells monsters. 

Page 3 Pencils:
After the success of drawing the last 5 panels on page 2 together, I opted for the middle section of 4 panels here to all be drawn together.

Page 3 Greyscale:
I'm not sure why, but I think I put reasoning into why each boy's shadow became which monster––and for the life of me I can only remember Glen (Jesse Glenn)'s being an owlbear-like thing because of an inside Joke about real-life Jesse once drawing the friendliest owlbear for my homemade board game Tower

Page 3 Final Color:
This story was written, drawn, and turned in a few months before the first season of Stranger Things aired––you know, that 1980's period piece about four pals playing an RPG when one of them mysteriously disappears after a session. 

So there you have it! I'm still proud of this story, because it got me to stretch narratively (humans, likenesses, panel count (9 panels on page 2!), and in a different medium (rendered pencil).

I did a blogpost about the process of drawing this story back when the issue came out in 2016. The story can still be found in Gotham Academy Vol. 3: Yearbook TPB or Comixology.

Someday soon I hop to have a moment and revisit these characters––to show what each of their Serpents and Spells characters looked like.