Usagi Yojimbo: Lone Goat & Kid #6

I was fortunate enough to be asked by IDW and Stan Sakai to do a run of covers on the new Usagi Yojimbo reprints of short story issues that will be collectively called 'Lone Goat and Kid'. I've done six in total, and for this blogpost I'll be sharing my process for the creation of the cover art for issue #6.

This issue is currently up for pre-order through Diamond with the code APR221602. Just ask your local comic shop to order it for you, or order it though an online retailer. The issue will be in shops Jun 22, 2022.

To the left you can see the finished cover, but below I'll go through the steps in creating it.

Layout/Pencils:

In this issue, We finally focus on the titular characters of the mini series: Yagi, the Lone Goat and his kid. Obviously, this is a play on Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub. This cover needed to be a rush job, there was a change at the distribution level that altered when solicitations are due, so I had about a week and a half to fit this cover's steps into my normal workload.

So, I went fairly straight forward with a reinterpretation of Stan's original cover back in 1990. For my version, I did shift the camera's view to a dutch angle to unsettle the vibe. The image you see to the right is several separate drawings all cobbled together in Photoshop, and then quickly colored to help me figure out the overall shapes and to easily convey to the editors and Stan what my vision was.

Inks:

When the layout was approved by the editor and Stan, I started the inks. First step was to print the layout file onto copy paper (over two sheets that had to be taped together at the seam) and tape that to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to ink the cover art using the printout as my pencils lines. This way in the end the inked artwork is very crisp and clean with no need to erase pencils lines. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens to ink the art (the 0.7 and 0.3 nibs).

The tricky parts to ink on this cover were the background shapes of the tree silhouettes so that they didn't touch any linework in the foreground, and the drawings of Usagi––which I considered inking with a brush pen, but decided to just do my best to emulate that look with my technical pens.

Color Flats:
The inks were approved and I scanned them in to Photoshop to start the coloring process. This first part of coloring digitally is called 'flatting' and is a professional version of coloring inside the lines. Establishing what each area's color is and where it ends. This not only is a color base for the image, but also allows a quick flat color area to be able to quickly isolate to render or make adjustments on. Most of the color choices had been made in the layout stage, but I made many subtle color and value adjustments to get the base colors just right before rendering. In this step I also established color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) on the background trees, the goats' eyes, and the drawings of Usagi.

Final Colors:
Here again is the finished art (this time sans-logo). To render all of the color I mostly used the Dodge and Burn tools (Photoshop tools based on real photography techniques for purposely over or under exposing film as it develops). Burn is do darken and Dodge is to lighten. I use a stock Photoshop textured brush as I add shadows and highlights with these tools so the work looks a little more organic and less digital.

Usagi Yojimbo: Lone Goat & Kid #6 is out in stores Jun 22, 2022..