For the past 8 years I've been making a limited edition 11" x 11" print that I sell at conventions and in my
online store. The prints are signed and numbered (to an edition of 300) and are meant to depict something 'pretty' from the world of Mouse Guard (an edict Julia gave me in 2012 that I've listened to ever since. I tend to name the print not after the mouse depicted, but of the flora that makes up the background.
This print, titled 'Teasel' will be released at Emerald City Comic Con next week. Below are the steps I took to create the piece.
I drew the mouse in pencil on a sheet of copy paper. But since I wanted to be able to adjust her size to the background drawing and the moth, I just roughed in those elements in that drawing.
On another sheet of copy paper, I then drew more detailed versions of the moth and the teasel with some photo reference as a guide. The warhammer was also going to need to be resized and shifted around in the final composition, so I included that on the teasel/moth sheet of paper off to the side.
I think now's a good time to talk about the inspiration for these visuals. 1) I've been reading a webcomic by Minna Sundberg called '
Stand Still Stay Silent'. Minna is Finnish and her series is set in Scandinavia and explores the languages, lore, religion, and clulture of those countries. I also love the blue/orange/brown/blush palate that often shows up in her work. 2) On our couch here at home, we have a comfy throw-blanket with a semi Norwegian patterning in a color scheme that fit feeling I was going for...and lastly the prickly burred dried plant called teasel felt like just the right visual as well as color to anchor a new Mouse Guard print and tie together the other inspirations.
So, with the pencil drawings I had on separate sheets of copy paper, I assembled a digital composition from the scans. This made it easy to reposition and rotate certain elements (like the mouse's head, the warhammer, the moth, the teasel) without having to carefully cut away from the objects around them. In Photoshop I tinted each thing a different color, and then added some stock Norwegian sweater designs to her cloak and hat. To help the illusion that the patterns are conforming to the flow and curves of the clothing, I used the warp and puppet warp tools in Photoshop to distort them believably enough.
With a printout of the above digitally corrected & layered composition taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol, I could ink the piece on a lightpad. I used a 0.7 nib Copic Multiliner pen to do my inks.
I inked most of this piece live on my twitch channel. But I did stop to ink the Norwegian pattern on the cloak off-stream after I thought about how to approach it. I debated over doing something solid black and having to avoid the contour lines of the folds and outer edge of the cloak (so I could easily isolate those areas for a color hold), or if I should do loose outlines...in the end I decided on a dark fur-like texture that I could feather as I approached the contour lines so the pattern didn't look so much like a stencil.
Once the inks were scanned in, I started the coloring process of adding in the flat colors digitally. I used a 6 color palette (3 warm browns, 3 muted blues) that I generated from looking at the throw-blanket. I did 2 different flat versions of the piece before I decided on the final base colors and where they should be placed. (I ended up going with the one on the right)
The final piece was then digitally rendered using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop to add shadows and highlights. There are some instances where I painted in some colors or lassoed an area and adjusted the color balance to warm up the corner of the sky, make her nose more pink, and get some individual teasel burs to stand out.
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Past year's 11' x 11" limited print process blogposts:
2012: "Peacock":
2013: "Raspberry":
2014: "Moonflower":
2015: "Lavender":
2016: "Juniper":
2017: "Rose":
2018: "Elderberry":
2019 Convention Appearances
(more may be announced)
Emerald City Comic Con March 14-17
Heroes Con June 14-16
San Diego Comic Con July 17-21
New York Comic Con October 3-6
Baltimore Comic Con October 18-20
The new Mouse Guard sketchbook entitled 'Legends' is out and now available in my online store! This 24 page color sketchbook includes my homages to twenty eight of the Legends of the Guard stories told by the talented artists & writers who spanned 3 volumes of the anthology series.
