Dawn of the Black Axe #2 Petersen Cover

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

Issue 2 is up for preorder now in local and online comic shops (FEB250074 for my 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)

To the right you can see the finished cover with logo etc, below I go through the art process to create it.

I gave Gabe the emotional cover and I opted to focus on one of the action scenes...or the anticipation of one of the action scenes.

There is a cave scene, where I was very much inspired by some of the shadow-on-the-wall cinematography of Stephen Spielberg from Raiders of the Lost Ark. So here I drew our hero Bardrick reacting to what we can't see––yet, though he can. The lighting doesn't make logical sense, but oh well, I liked how it communicated so graphically the point. The shadows were actually gleaned from the flats of the scene in the issue of Gabe's snakes and I altered them here and there to get my shadow shapes where I wanted them while avoiding tangents. 

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 & 0.3 nibs).

The inking work on this piece was in the shadows making those gradients and avoiding the wall crack-lines.

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.)

Bardrick's colors were already established in the series, but I had to alter them to fit the lighting of this scene. The background is basically 2 values of the same brown and a lot of the heavy lifting of this cover (as well as the work in flatting it) is in those snake silhouettes as color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black). I also added color holds to the glow of the lantern and the flame of the candle.

To render the color I used Photoshop's dodge and burn tools with a textured brush to get the highlights, shadows and textures. The warm lighting highlights were achieved by using the freehand lasso tool with a feather to select areas and color shift them warmer I also decided to alter the shadows all a bit cooler because with the warm glow of the lantern, everything was too color matchy-matchy.

Below is the solicitation info for the second issue that will be in shops April 23rd, 2025

CODE: FEB250074 (Petersen cover)
(W) David Petersen (A) Gabriel Rodriguez

The origin story of the Black Axe continues!
Bardrick, the first wielder of the Axe, continues his campaign against the serpents surrounding the mouse territories, but even he can't be everywhere at once...The legendary weapon-bearer must serve his duty, but can he truly manage it all on his lonesome?!