Dawn of the Black Axe #1 Laufman Cover Process

Mouse Guard: Dawn of the Black Axe issue #1 had several variant covers and the one available exclusively through BOOM! Direct (my publisher's online store) was drawn by Derek Laufman

I suggested Derek to the editors because of seeing this piece of his on his social media and thinking it felt very 'Mouse Guard':
 https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:zrn73yyjy3ykioirprgvvgea/bafkreifim6cpbwyw34hhz3igtttk43am2egy42thizl2nx373sndnjredu@jpeg

Below are some of the steps Derek has offered to share as part of the process:

Initial rough options:

I was shown these as an A & B option.


Rough A:

While this scene isn't specifically in issue 1, it felt like a good summary of the series.

Pencils:

I never saw these pencils––I think for approvals we went from rough to inks, but Derek was good enough to dig out this file and share it. I believe the pencils are all digital.

Inks:

Derek prints out his digital pencils on art board and then inks traditionally.

These finished inks were what I saw next and approved.

Color Flats:

This is another step I didn't see, but Derek shared now for this post. He's laying in flat colors that aren't necessarily the final palate with no rendering or texture just to establish the areas of color.

Final colors:

The final art as it was printed. 

Thank you Derek for the awesome cover and everyone please check out Derek Laufman's other work:
https://www.dereklaufman.com/