Rose Limited Edition Print Process

Since 2012 I've released a new 11" x 11" limited edition print every year. Past year's pieces have been titled "Peacock", "Raspberry","Moonflower", "Lavender", and "Juniper". Julia requested that these prints be pretty and not just a mouse doing battle, but more aesthetically feminine. To the left is the finished artwork for this year's "Rose" and below I'll show the full process.

The print is available in my online store and at my convention appearances until the print sells out

For this year's print, "Rose" I chose to focus on a character from Mark Smylie's Legends of the Guard story "Crown of Silver, Crown of Gold". In that story a mouse named Moria from Rosestone who avenged her beloved warrior mouse after he was slain due to treachery from the king. In the last panel (shown to the right) she takes up his armor and weapons and becomes a well-known guardmouse. In Black Axe, I went further than that and showed (via a stained glass tribute) that she became one of the most celebrated of Matriarchs of the Guard)

I started with the figure of Moria drawing her out on copy paper. I tried a few variations and ended up merging the two (the head from one and the body/pose of the other). Then I placed a printout of my merged drawing on my light pad and on a new sheet of paper over top, I drew out a series of wild roses making sure to have intersection points for her feet to touch. After scanning those two drawings in to photoshop, tinting them different colors to help me visualize, resizing them, and making some placement tweaks, I had a layout for this print ready.


I printed the composite layout onto two sheets of legal copy paper (being 11" square, the layout wouldn't fit across one sheet, so I had to print the top and bottom separately and then puzzle them back together). Using my light pad, I was able to see through a sheet of bristol to the printout of my layout below. I taped the layout to my bristol to make sure I didn't lose registration as I inked. To the right you can see the finished ink (this was inked all with Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs).

Once the inking was done, I started coloring the piece. This process starts with a job called 'flatting' where you simply lay in flat colors to establish which parts are which colors. With Moria's copper armor and shield, red cloak, and the color of the roses, I knew this was going to be a warm-toned piece. So even my greens are falling into a yellow-brown zone. I looked at varieties of wild roses to get a sense of the color palates, but shifted everything a bit more red/magenta to create the color unity I wanted...though that would mean being careful to get all the various 'greens' to read as different shapes without being able to adjust their overall hue too far away from the base color.


The final step was to render the image. This means going in and adding depth and texture with shadow, and highlights. I do this using the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop (and a textured stock brush). Making sure to give the armor the right amount of rendering so it looks metallic while also dialing it back on the flowers so they don't look plastic took some self control and fiddling to get right.

Again, the print is available in my online store and at my convention appearances until all 300 are sold out.

2017 Appearances: 

Heroes Con: Jun. 16-18

San Diego Comic Con: July 19-23

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

Mouse Guard Model Video: Barrel Carrier

For the prologue of The Black Axe (a story originally published on Free Comic Book Day in 2010), I built a model of a a barrel carrier for the mice to re-por the scent border. With the fan excitement over the video of Adam Savage talking to me about my models on Tested.com I wanted to do some videos where I talk about a specific model, how I built it, what the materials were, and why I built it in the first place.

Below you can watch as I explain the thought process of how mice would pour the border:

2017 Appearances: 

Emerald City Comic Con: Mar. 2-5

C2E2: April 21-23

Heroes Con: Jun. 16-18

San Diego Comic Con: July 19-23

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

Thundercats

Thunder...Thunder...THUNDERCATS, HO!

As a fun experiment at my weekly Art Night gathering with other local artist friends, I tried my hand at drawing a favorite of mine as a kid...the Tundercats! I didn't want to redesign them, or stick to copying a model sheet, I wanted to just draw them as I would, with respect to the original designs but enough David Petersen linework that you knew it was from my hand.


I want to reiterate, these were only for fun. I'm not working on any Thundercats Project, and I won't make prints of characetrs I don't own. With that said, enjoy!

Many of the original inked pieces are available in my online store:

http://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/category/original-artwork

2017 Appearances: 

C2E2: April 21-23

Heroes Con: Jun. 16-18

San Diego Comic Con: July 19-23

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

TMNT/Usagi Cover Process

Usagi Yojimbo and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are crossing over and teaming up!!! The stand-alone issue is written and drawn by Usagi creator Stan Sakai, and published by IDW.

I was lucky enough to be asked to do a variant cover for the occasion. This marks my 13th TMNT cover and my 4th time drawing Usagi for publication. And when Bobby Curnow (TMNT editor) asked if I could do a cover, I pushed a few days of Mouse Guard work to the side to be a part of this.

In this blogpost I'm going through the process for creating the cover art.


Roughs: 

I don't want to say much about the plot of the issue...but Usagi and the TMNT team up and there is a catfish in the tale too. For the cover, I wanted to show Usagi and the turtles piled in a classic team-up pose with the catfish ethereally looming behind & overhead. For the turtles...I'd done a TMNT rough for a possible licensed print from one of the well-known slikscreen print companies. For various reasons, it didn't come to fruition, but it meant I had a set of Leo, Raph, Mike, & Don unused...

So I set to drawing Usagi first. Then I traced over my old versions of the TMNT to make new tighter pencils of them in an arrangement that would flank Usagi. Doing this allowed me to also make anatomical and detail corrections as well as mirror Donatello & Leonardo.

And then the big old catfish on another sheet of copy paper.

With these sketches/pencils done, I could scan them into Photoshop for....


Layouts:
Now most artists wouldn't go so far as to color-flat the layout that they submit to their editor for approval (and in this case approvals went through Nickelodeon & IDW for TMNT and Stan & Dark Horse for Usagi), but I wanted to make sure the tone and palate as well as the subtle handling of the catfish would be handled.

I had a TMNT title-mastead & IDW logo from my TMNT covers to place as a reference point for what would most likely be covered up for the final publication.


Inks: 
Once the layout was approved by all (no changes, thankfully) I printed out the layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol board. On a light pad (I use a Huion brand large enough to fit most of a cover) I was able to see through the bristol to the layout print and then ink on the surface of the bristol without having to transfer the image or have any pencil lines to erase (and ultimately smear the not-quite-dry ink that I all-too-often do). I used Copic Multiliner pens to ink the cover. I tent to use the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly.



Flats:
Once the inks are completed, I scanned them into Photoshop and started flatting in colors...unfortunately it was easier to just re-color this instead of trying to re-register & correct the flats from the layout.

I am a fan of the all-red bandannas from the original Eastman & Laird comics, but to fit in with current IDW continuity, I was told by my editor to give them the multi-color treatment. The other colors were stock from the existing character designs & my original layout. To push back the catfish I added a color hold to it's inkwork as well as all those little dots (meant to give that etherial particles in the air/water catching the light feel).


Here again are the final colors. All of the rendering was done in Photoshop using the Dodge & Burn tools with a textured brush.  This crossover issue will be available to pre-order soon with the book to be released in July.

2017 Appearances: 

C2E2: April 21-23

Heroes Con: Jun. 16-18

San Diego Comic Con: July 19-23

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8