Usagi Yojimbo Kaito 84' Cover

I've been fortunate enough to get to do several Usagi covers for Stan Sakai's beloved series (see past covers/pinups), so when I was asked to do a cover for the new Usagi series written by Zack Rosenberg and painted by Jared Cullum that is set in 1984, I was thrilled. Not just because I'm a fan of Usagi, but it's interesting to be part of this historic project where Stan Sakai is not at the helm. This could worry some fans, but anyone who know's Jared's work and Zack's enthusiasm and their combined dedication to this book, it's source material, and the outside influences it's tapping into will be picking this book up with every new issue.
To the side you can see my finished cover, and in this post I'll talk about the process of creating it.

It started with a conversation with Jared & Zack at SDCC last year where they asked if I'd do a cover. We talked about the story and influences of 80's anime they were inspired by for this 'modern' take on Usagi––and Zack mentioned I could do something that wasn't even story specific and just gave off a 1980's vibe. I mentioned Usagi at an arcade where all the cabinets had art on the sides that were not our real world games but nods to Usagi comics––and with that agreed upon I started compiling photos I could find of early 80's arcades.

Using that reference to draw a tight series of cabinets (tighter than I wanted, but it was hard to get enough of the machines in that they could be seen in the tall formatting of a cover. I penciled Usagi and Yukichi using the costume reference Jared shared with me each separately and had to move and reposition bits (Usagi's head tilt and his hand) until I had a composition where they were interacting with the arcade cabinet.

I over-did the color blocking, but this was partly to assure, Stan, Zack, Jared and their editor I knew where I was going with this––but it was also to show myself that I knew where I was going. I still left the cabinet decoration loose until I knew they were all on board.

Luckily I was approved to move forward and while I was able to play with motifs and design bits for the other cabinets, I decided to pay homage to The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy on the machine Usagi's using (which I inked as a negative based on one of Stan's drawings).

The inks were done by printing out the layout and taping it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to ink while using the printout as a guide instead of traditional pencils. 

Most of the tricky parts on this cover were the density of lines on the cabinets while trying to still keep spaces open for color to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to the lighting. 

The inks were then scanned and I started the coloring process. This first step is called flatting, where it's more of a professional coloring-in-the-lines assignment so long as each color area (Usagi's fur, Usagi's coat, Yukichi's fur, coat, each cabinet, the floor, etc) are all different flat colors. As you see here, the colors don't even need to be final choices, they can be anything as long as they are different from one another.

At this stage I also established color holds, areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black, on all the graphics of the cabinets, Usagi's scar, and the screens.

Once I got the base colors closer to my layout piece, the final rendering was done using dodge and burn tools in Photoshop to add light and shadow. This cover also relies on a lot of lighting effect layers to add those screen glows and the bounced color lighting. It was fun to re-imagine my experiences in retro arcades Tilt, Alladin's Castle, and Pinball Pete's and try to make it work for a Usagi comic. 

USAGI YOJIMBO: KAITO '84 #3

Publication date: May 20, 2026

UPC: 76156801508900331