Beneath the Dark Crystal #11 & 12 Cover Process

For my last two covers, numbers 11 & 12 of Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series, I decided to do adjoining covers of the Gelflings Kira & Jen!

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

With the series being 12 issues, and there only being 10 sets of Mystics & Skeksis, my editors and I knew the last 2 covers would need something different.

We talked about having Jen & Kira together on a cover and having the other cover being Augrah & a Garthim--or the new two main characters in the 'Beneath' series, but as I drew Jen on a sheet of copy paper, I drew him rather larger than I'd drawn any of the Skeksis or Mystics...And I thought, damn, I like the drawing, and I'd hate to re-size it and lose any detail or make inking him harder. So I went ahead and drew Kira at the same scale holding out hope I could find a way to cram them together on a single cover...and I suddenly realized, they were meant to be facing each other! So I re-formatted my photoshop cover template file to be two adjoining covers and layed out the cover that way. I tinted each character to help me see them better, and then drew the background of the prophecy stone (heavily helped by photo reference provided by Henson) on sheets of copy paper and added them to the composition.

With the digital collage of my pencil drawings all sized, set, and approved by Henson & Archaia, I printed it out (took 4 sheets of copy paper I had to tape back together) and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. The bristol was a sheet of 19" x 24"...the image itself is about 21" x 17". A very large piece to ink. On my lightpad, I could ink the piece with my Copic Multiliners (I used the 0.7 nib mostly with the 0.3 nib coming out for the eyes and most of Fizgig). I streamed inking this on Twitch over several sessions. 

Once the inks were finished and then also approved by everyone, I could scan them and start on the coloring. With the piece as large as it was, I had to scan it in 2 parts and then reassemble it in Photoshop. The first step in coloring a piece like this for me is establishing the color holds (where the inkwork won't be black, but a color I can paint: The background, Kira's wing edges & Jen's pants pattern) and laying in flat colors for hair, skin, leafs, wings, clothing, etc. I did myself a favor on the color holds by leaving a gap between my background ink-lines and the figures...it made them much easier to isolate.

The last step to a piece like this is to render the color. Something I also shared while streaming on Twitch over a few sessions. Most of my rendering (adding highlights, shadows, and texture) is done with a textured brush and the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop. However, in several cases on this piece with the Gelflings' skin, I had to use the paintbrush tool to more carefully control the color choices and the subtlety of the rendering. It's something I rarely do, but have found that when coloring human-esque faces it's necessary.

These will be published as separate covers #11: Kira & #12: Jen. Below are what the covers will look like cut apart.

This is kind of a full-circle moment for me. It was a decade ago in 2009 that I did a Dark Crystal promo for Archaia to announce at SDCC the Archaia partnership with Henson...and it had Kira on the left and Jen on the right with the prophecy stone as a background element. Here I am 10 years later and rounding out the 12 issue arc of Beneath the Dark Crystal the same way.  I'm also very glad to see the growth in my work in that time as a penciler, inker, colorist and in my compositions. 

I've had a blast getting to draw every Skeksis and Mystic and Jen and Kira from the 1982 film for this run of covers. Thank you to Archaia for hiring me to do so, and for the fans for being so supportive of my covers, and for you blog readers who have come along with me to see the process.

2019 Appearances
Heroes Con June 14-16
San Diego Comic Con July 17-21
GenCon August 1-4
New York Comic Con October 3-6
Baltimore Comic Con October 18-20
The Fantastic Workshop Nov. 13-18

Beneath the Dark Crystal #10 Cover Process

Here is my tenth variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series!

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

This cover, the last in the run to feature Mystics and skeksis, is of UrSu the Wisest of the Mystics and skekSo the Emperor of the Skeksis. Like my other covers these two are the counterparts of each other and paired together facing opposite directions. To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps I took to to get there.



I'll start by saying that the challenge of this cover was that there was no official design for skekSo the Emperor in full skeksis garb. In the film he's bedridden and dying. My editor and I asked Henson for any chance of possible past Froud sketches or even perhaps any insight if skekSo is in the new Netflix prequel series, but they were only able to provide me with photos of the puppet used in the original film and some nice images of his bedchambers to draw inspiration from. So I set out to design The Emperor's costume myself.

Like all the past covers, I drew each character on separate sheets of copy paper. For the Emperor, I tried to use some of his blankets, wall hangings, and tasseled chords to drape him in. I also noticed in the run of drawing these covers that skeksis tend to have some carapace from some beast on Thra as part of their adornment––so I gave him a Crystal Bat collar with the crystal eye acting like an all-seeing 3rd eye for the ruler of those wretched cruel creatures. On his back I attempted to draw something resembling a Landstrider skull, but I'm not sure if I really did that so well.

The Wisest of the Mystics was fairly straight forward as a drawing in comparison, and when the two were drawn, I scanned them and tinted them each a different color when laying them out for the composition to help me see them better.

My editors and I waited, a little worried about the approvals on this one. The others were so inline with the original designs, that I took few liberties (other than trying to work out and interpret details of the costumes)––but here I 'd completely made up the visuals for a main character's look. We all breathed a big sigh of relief when Henson approved.

I printed out the above layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore bristol to start inking it on a lightpad with Copic Multiliner pens.

In terms of ink details, I do think this one got a bit more texture than most of the other covers as I tried to help the viewer's eye (as well as my own) understand where fabrics and materials changed as they overlapped and draped the characters.


When the inks were approved, I started on flatting the colors. This is the step where I add flat colors, not worried about the texture and rendering and lighting effects of them, to the characters to establish what parts of the image are which colors.

The biggest challenge here was that I had very little to go on for what the Emperor's color palate would be. I opted to make him a bit darker than I think most of the bedchamber & puppet reference was to make this skeksis the most terrifying looking of them all.




The last step was to render all the colors adding highlights and shadows and texture with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop while using a textured brush.

This cover marks a transition in the run. I still have two covers to go in the series, but this is the last cover to feature skeksis and mystics, and it was the last cover my Mouse Guard & Dark Crystal editor Cameron Chittock worked on with me before he moved on to a new path with his wife (another former Mouse Guard editor) as they start a new chapter in Boston.

2 covers left to go...time for some gelflings...


2019 Convention Appearances

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

Beneath the Dark Crystal #9 Cover Process

Here is my ninth variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series!

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

This cover features UrAmaj the Mystic Cook and skekAyuk the Skeksis Gourmand. Like my other covers these two are the counterparts of each other and paired together facing opposite directions. To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps I took to to get there.



The first step was to draw each character in profile. I draw the characters on separate pieces of copy paper to help me arrange, position and re-size them into an overall composition. I was able to use reference photos from the original production from Henson to help me figure out all the details on the characters and their costumes. When I scanned the drawings into photoshop, I tinted each drawing a different color to help me see where one character ended and the next began.

The background circle pattern is my redrawing of a Brian Froud design found in the World of the Dark Crystal art book.


Henson and Archaia had to approve the above layout before I could start inking the cover. Luckily, they've both been great about green-lighting my Dark Crystal work so-far (knock on wood for the rest of the cover run). When the approval came through, I printed out the above layout onto copy paper, and then taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol.
On a lightpad I can ink on the surface of the bristol while still being able to see the layout underneath.

I used Copic Multiliner pens to do the inks focusing on how to play with line size and texture to get all those costume and fabric details to still read to the viewer's eye.


After the inks were approved I scanned them and started the coloring process known as 'flatting'. This is where flat colors are drawn in digitally to establish what areas of the image and the figures are which colors. A lot of the color choices were established by the reference photos, but I still handpicked the colors so that I could make some hue and value choices to get a better cohesive palate for the cover as a whole.


I only needed to establish one color hold (where I want the inkwork to be a color other than black) on this piece, and that was for the background pattern.



The final step was to render the colors using the dodge and burn tools (and a stock photoshop brush that adds texture) to add highlights, shadows, and texture to the colors.

At this stage I also dropped in another Froud-design that I inked as a ghostly overlay like the other covers in this series.

With this cover done, that leaves 3 to go!




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

Beneath the Dark Crystal #8 Cover Process

Here is my eighth variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series!

 To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

This cover features UrNol the Mystic Herbalist (sometimes referred to as the Hunter) and skekNa the Skeksis Slave Master. Like my other covers these two are the counterparts of each other and paired together facing opposite directions. To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps I took to to get there.



I started by drawing the two characters on separate sheets of copy paper. As each character was missing the same eye, I had to decide which character was more visually interesting showing their patch than the other, that would not only determine which way they faced, but as I alternate the directions of the mystics and skeksis on each cover, where it would fall in the issue numbering. I opted to show the patch of skekNa. Using reference provided by Henson, I was able to draw the two and then scan them into Photoshop and place them in a template for the cover. I tinted each character to help me see what lines were associated with which figure.



When Henson & Archaia approved the layout, I printed it out on copy paper and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. using a lightpad, I can see through the surface of the bristol to use the printout as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens to inks with. Mostly using the 0.7 nib and swapping it out for the 0.3 for some of the finer details on their faces.

These characters had a little less texture detail than some of the other covers I've done in their series, so while I still had to do some work in the inks to make the forms have some tonal definition, this cover went quicker than the others to ink.


The next step, after the inks were approved, were to start coloring the cover. That first step is called 'flatting' where flat un-rendered colors are placed in digitally. The idea is to establish what parts of the characters are what colors, and where those colors change. It's like a professional version of coloring within the lines.

At this point I also established some color-holds, where I want the inklines to be a color other than black. For this cover those were for the background design and the chains on the shoulder of the skeksis.



When the flats are established (no need to submit for approvals at that stage), the more exciting part of adding shading highlights and texture to the colors is at hand. To do that I pretty exclusively use the dodge & burn tools in Photoshop with a stock textured brush.

Like the other covers in this series, I drop in an inked Froudian pattern overtop of the whole image as a ghostly symbol.

4 more covers to go!



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

Beneath the Dark Crystal #7 Cover Process

Here is my seventh variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series! 

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

 This cover features UrUtt the Mystic Weaver and skekEkt the Skeksis Ornamentalist. Like my other covers these two are the counterparts of each other and paired together facing opposite directions.

To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps I took to to get there.


On separate sheets of copy paper I drew the Skeksis and the Mystic. I was able to use some fantastic reference photos provided by Henson from the time of the original production. I also had some photos of my own of skekEkt from a visit I made to the Henson lot in '09, but it was still in a state of some disrepair, so I was only able to use it for some of the jewelry and costume. When the reference failed me, I just did my best to interpret the ideas of the details into something that looked believable. Something I needed to do a lot of on the Weaver. With both of the characters drawn I scanned them put them on different layers in a photoshop template of the cover, and tint them to make it easier to see where one character ended and the other began. The pattern in the back was also drawn separately and is a copy of a Brian Froud design from the World of the Dark Crystal art book.

When the layout was approved by Archaia and Henson, I was able to print out the above design and tape it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On a Huion light pad, I can see through the surface of the brstol down to the printout and I use it as a guide as I ink. For pens, I used Copic Multiliner SP's (The 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly).

My goal as I inked this piece was to include as much detail as I could while also not cluttering up the piece and making the figures and their costumes hard to read. Line quality, weight, and texture play a big role in trying to make that clear visually.


The inks were approved by both Archaia and Henson and it was time to start on the first step in the coloring process known as 'flatting'. It's the boring part of coloring where you establish which areas are which colors. There's some technical stuff involved too for how you are setting up your photoshop layers and the file as a whole to make moving around the image and selecting the right areas as you render the piece in the next step as smoothly and painlessly as possible.

Most of the color choices were easy to pick from the photo reference, but there is always a lot of value and hue adjustment at this stage so that the whole piece works as a color palate.


The final step for this cover was to render the colors adding shading, texture, and highlights. I use the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop to do that, with a stock textured brush to help emulate the look of something a little more natural and less airbrush-digital-slick.

Overtop of the whole piece I added in another Froudian design (one that I inked back when I was inking the cover itself) as a ghostly overlay on the entire piece.





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

Beneath The Dark Crystal Variant Cover #6

Here is my sixth variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series!

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here. 

This cover features UrAc the Mystic Scribe and skekOk the Skeksis Scroll Keeper. Like my other covers these two are the counterparts of each other and paired together facing opposite directions. To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps I took to to get there.



On separate sheets of copy paper I drew UrAc the Mystic and skekOk the Skeksis. I was fortunate to have some great reference from Henson for both, though there's always a part you'd like to be able to see or tough on the real puppet that the photo just doesn't provide the information for––so I just interpreted it all as best as I could. I tried to get their props mimicking each other a bit, the staff for the Mystic and the scrolls for the Skeksis. On a third piece of paper I copied an existing Froud pattern found in the art book of the Dark Crystal as the background. Once I had those drawings finished, I scanned them all, and with each part on a different layer, I tinted them different colors. The color tints for the pencils helps me see where a character ends and the next begins or what are the finicky background details.

Once the layout was approved by Archaia and Henson, it was time to move on to inking the cover. I printed the above layout out onto copy paper (two sheets I had to tape together for the full image). That printout was then taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol board. On my Huion lightpad I could see through the surface of the bristol to the printout below and use it as a guide as I inked with Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly). As ever with these Dark Crystal covers, texture is so much about how I try to honor the practical costuming and puppet building of the Henson Creature Shop. Little stippling, line weight decisions, and differences in hatching helps me create those fabrics and materials.

With the inks completed, I could move on to the coloring stage. The first step of which is the less-fun part: Flatting. Flatting is essentially a professional version of 'coloring within the lines'. No shading details are done, just flat (hence the name) colors are established. Which parts of the image are which colors.

Some of the color choice decisions are based on the photo reference I have, but I'm also eyeballing those colors and then making alterations that suit the illustration. In this stage I also establish the color holds (the areas that I want the ink to print as a color other than black) for the background Froudian circle pattern.


The final step for this cover was to render the colors adding shading, texture, and highlights. I use the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop to do that, with a stock textured brush to help emulate the look of something a little more natural and less airbrush-digital-slick.

Overtop of the whole piece I added in another Froudian design (one that I inked back when I was inking the cover itself) as a ghostly overlay on the entire piece.

TMNT Macro Series Collection Cover

After I turned in my last TMNT Macro series cover (Raphael), editor Bobby Curnow asked if I'd be up for doing one more so that the trade collection had new artwork. In the past the trades collecting my Micro Series' & Turtles in Time runs reused work from those covers. So this was a nice treat to get to put all the turtles together as a tidy bow to end this run.

To the left you can see the finished cover art, but below I'll go through the steps and stages from sketch to finished colors:




Sketches:
As usual, I like drawing characters separately on copy paper to help me work out poses, and rework details by overlaying more sheets while working on a lightpad. I also find it hard to compose an arangemet of the Turtles where each gets a fair representation in terms of scale and face-time AND there are no odd tangents with each other OR their weapons.

So over the corse of several sheets for the four turtles and a photo referenced study of the City Hall subway platform in NYC, I had what I needed to assemble something to show Bobby.

Layout:
Since each turtle was separately drawn and scanned, I could easily move, shift, resize, rotate, and tint them to help figure out the puzzle of a layout where, as I said above, there were no tangents. In this stage I did have to make an alteration to Leo's sword because it was always covering part of Mike's face until I changed it, I realized I never finished drawing one of Raph's legs, and was able to swap in a mirror of one of Leo's, and came up with a pile of garbage to justify why/how Don was standing up higher than the rest.

I picked the abandoned City Hall platform not because of it being an homage in the 2nd live action movie, but because I'm fascinated by it architecturally, and love the idea of the turtles exploring abandoned spaces in NYC as potential temporary lairs/hangouts/hide-outs.

The layout it pretty fully realized as an image. I go overboard on many work-for-hire layouts so that the editors and licensors can clearly see what I'm going for without having to do much interpreting and guesswork about the intent for the final art.

Inks:
Once the layout stage was approved, I was able to move on to the inks. I printed out the digitally composited layout sketches on copy paper, and then taped that to the back of a sheet of 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad, I can see through the surface of the bristol to the printout below to use as a guide instead of traditional pencils.

For pens I used Copic Multiliner SPs...mostly the 0.7 nib, but I used some much finer sizes around the eyes.

Flats:
When the inks were approved, I moved on to the boring bit of coloring known as flatting. This is where you digitally color in the lines establishing base colors for everything with a hard edged brush. The flat colors makes it easier when you do go to render the final colors to isolate areas so you can shade and texture them accordingly.

Now's also a good moment to mention that each turtle has some carry-over item from my individual Macro Series cover of them: Leo's hooded poncho, Raph's shuriken bandolier, Don's welding goggles, and Mike's bindle bandanna tied around his arm.


Final Colors:
Here again you can see the final colors for the piece. I rendered all the characters and most of the background using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a textured brush.

The tile details as well as the spot outlines on Mike's bindle bandanna were given a color hold, and area of the inks I wanted to be a painted color and not black. The lights were given some extra layers to help with the glow effect.

The TMNT Macro series Trade will be available in June of 2019.



Here's a link to all my past TMNT covers: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/TMNT

Gnomevember 2017 Re-Visit...

November of last year I participated in 'GNOMEVEMBER'. Not only had I never heard about it before I saw Becky Cloonan tweeting in late October of her plans to participate, but I'd never done a one-a-day for a month event like "INKTOBER' or 'DRAWTOBER'. So it was a challenge for-sure! It was also at a time when I was under a lot of personal stress and I found that making the space each day to try and get one Gnome drawn helped a lot. Sometimes I fell behind, sometimes I drew elaborate scenes or larger pieces, other times I drew something simple or small to help not bog me down and get back to the pressures of the day.

Over the last year I've been coloring my Gnomevember pieces for fun--and with the idea that we may do some type of prints/products with them (which still may happen--stay tuned). But for now, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I wanted to share these with you not just to say I'm thankful for the experience I had drawing and coloring these wee folk--but that I'm more thankful for my fans who enjoyed and supported me through their creation and the difficult times they were created in.

I've opened a little Popup Shop for my #GNOMEVEMBER pieces over on Society6 for the holidays! Prints, Coasters, Stationary Cards, Totes, Travel Mugs & More: https://society6.com/davidpetersen

A Smoking Gnome.

A Garden Gnome.

A Woodcutter Gnome.

A Cooking Gnome.

A Knight Gnome.

A Young (for a Gnome) Artist Gnome

named David.

A Harvesting Gnome on the Run.

Playing the Lute.

A Lantern Gnome.

Elder Gnome with Death's Head Moth.

Siberian Gnome.

A sprig of pine and a spot of tea.

Oaken Staffed Gnome.

Hiding in the Berries.

Royal Gnomes.

Starting a Window.

Engagement.

 A Gnome & Her Marionette

The End.

Not all of my GNOMEVMEBER pieces are colored, if you want a look at all of last year's Gnomes:

https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2017/12/gnomevember-2017.html