Legends of the Guard Vol.2 Hardcover Cover Process:

Even though we still have issues of Legends of the Guard Vol 2 to be released, Today I'll walk through my cover for the hardcover collection of the second volume of Legends of the Guard. On the left is the final cover, with border and logo, and credits. But first I started with an idea for the cover of "a mouse peddling goods involved in a race against another peddler or a predator". It took some suggestions from friends and my wife Julia before it shaped into "two guardmice with a cart harnessed to a quail fleeing minks"

First up, I wanted to design the cart. I looked at a few medieval era cart drawings and recreations, but decided I'd rather scratch build something myself to get a feel for it. I used scrap basswood (they sell bags of it at the hardware store) to frame up the cart, lashed it together with string, and used some cardboard for the planks & wheels. I like building models this way (opposed to digitally) because it gives me a reason to push away from the computer, use my hands and engage my brain in not just a design sense, but a construction sense. How it's assembled is as important to me as what it looks like in the end.

I sketched out a quail, several minks, and the guard mice and assembled them in photoshop with a photo of the cart in the position I wanted. I struggled back and forth on what the minks should look like...should they wear clothes? if so, what type. I've only shown one mink before (Black Axe #4) and I drew it without clothing...but I felt these four needed needed them, not just to convey intelligence, but as a design choice to add some color and eye-lures to move the readers eye across the image better.

I printed out the above digital composite and taped it to the back of my Strathmore 300 series bristol. and then inked the piece on a lightbox using the printout as a guide. As you can see, I did a lot of the work in the ink. The mushrooms became so prominent because a fan tweeted to me that they'd like to see me draw more of them (they asked for morels, which I thought were too fussy with detail on this scale), so the guardmice now had a job of harvesting mushrooms.

The last step was to color the piece. I wanted to gain back the obvious 'up on one wheel' speed and fury the quail cart was going, so I added a color hold to all the inkwork behind the little ridge they are coming up over. Other than that, I colored this in my normal way, flatting in colors first and then using the dodge and burn tools to render each part and add texture. The overall palette is a bit more monochromatic that some of my past Mouse Guard work, but I'm aiming to be more subtle with color and not beat you over the head with it.

I'm really proud of this second round of Legends of the Guard. I think the contributors did a fantastic job. I hope you all enjoy the hardcover when it comes out later this year, and that you enjoy the one paragraph story that accompanies this cover.

Upcoming Appearances:

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8
Granite State Comicon: September 28-29

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Legends of the Guard Vol2 #4 cover

Legends of the Guard Vol 2. #4 cover process:
The second volume of Legends of the Guard will close with issue #4. The last issue is the focus of this week's blogpost...well the cover rather. This cover I think has taken the place of Winter #4 as my favorite Mouse Guard cover. My original notes for this cover were "ritual or ceremony w/ pedestal basin and chalice. interesting architecture in background". But I had already done a piece like that as a commission (which was later colored & included in the 2012 sketchbook) and couldn't figure out a new take on it and assumed I'd just repeat myself. Inspired by the Watercolor Wednesday  painting of coins, I thought "It would be fun to do mouse discovering a Smaug-esque treasure horde with a weasel skeleton atop it"...so that's the direction I went.

I started not with a sketch, but a model. I wanted to keep the bit from my original notes about interesting architecture. I've drawn from Moorish architectural cues before when drawing Weasel dwellings. and this time I replicated (in chip board, basswood, & paper) a column salvaged from a Masonic Temple that is now at Materials Unlimited. I had seen the column in person when I worked there, but I refreshed my memory by looking it up again online. The remaining elements were the mouse & weasel skeleton. I looked at reference online for the skeleton, but made some of it up as I went. I also couldn't decide which way I preferred the dislocated mandible to point, so I drew it both directions.

With my camera on a tripod and a grid on a table, I was able to take several photos of the single column in multiple locations and arrangements. I Photoshopped these together until I had a layout for the columns I liked (a few were too dense, a few too sparse). The sketches were dropped in and I did some tweaking of the weasel skeleton sketch (shifting the head and arm a bit, and elimination the one version of the mandible). And piled in the shape of the coins with a quick custom brush.

Once I had the layout all digitally adjusted and ready, I printed it out at 8.25" x 16.25" (the same size as the final original artwork). I taped this printout to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol and worked on a lightbox to ink the cover. This was one of those times that, as I inked, I couldn't tell if I was going too far, or not far enough. The more texture, the more dramatic the lighting, the better it seemed the piece would be, but about 1/2 way through, I started getting worried. Cory Godbey & I were exchanging in-progress work that day, and he messaged me to "push through", and so I did. The inks were all done with Copic Multiliners (even the large black areas...though I did resort to using one of their brush-tips a few times)

I knew the final color values & tones of this cover would be subtle, so to make it easier to be sure I had flatted all the colors properly, I went with eye-piercing obnoxious & garish colors at first. The object of flatting in color anyhow is to just make sure you have established all the color areas as separate from each other. Once the flats were all established, I started replacing all the ugly choices with something more like the final art to prepare for the final rendering.

Here's a look at the color cover art without the logo & text. The rendering was all done using a textured brush in Photoshop and the dodge & burn tools.

Issue #4 of Legends Vol.2 will feature stories from

Bill Willingham, Jackson Sze, Justin Gerard, & Cliff Monear

Watercolor Wednesday:
Odd items were on my mind when painting last week's Watercolor Wednesday pieces (paintings I offer for sale every Wednesday in my online store). The first of the two I titled "Royal, Holy, & Chivalrous" depicting a king, bishop, and knight from a carved chess set. I looked at a few carved sets for inspiration, but made each piece my own in some way.

The other item came up while I was searching for chess-set reference. I found a photo of a marionette theater in Prague (I don't know who I linked to there from chess-sets...) and thought it would be fun to paint some mis-proportioned and silly looking figure. A knight won...but I could see me doing a set of these with a king and villain...perhaps a fool as well.

Upcoming Appearances:

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Legends of the Guard Storytellers:
For Volume 2 of Legends of the Guard (Which starts in issue form next Wednesday), I needed to design 12 new mouse storytellers - one for each of the contributors. A few of the artists had already turned in their stories when I started on the mouse designs, but not all, so instead of trying to match most of the mice to a particular story-tone, I just made a variety of characters that seemed interesting and matched them up later.

Here are the twelve storytelling mouse characters. Even though this art wasn't required until the Hardcover collection extras were being produced, I wanted a solid character model sheet to use while doing my pages for the series. Not only does each mouse have it's own marking (nicked ears, missing limbs) they also have their own fashion, details, palette, and tankard. For this blogpost, I'll talk about a few of the character's designs.

They all started as rougher sketches that I tightened up as I found a particular design I liked. Some of the characters started as 'What type of mouse hat haven't I drawn?" or "is there a material I haven't shown a mouse wearing often/yet?". Here is a scan of doodles on printed light blue 'mouse maniquins' and at the top and bottom are the versions I decided to tighten up and pursue as characters.



I had a bit of trouble as I was roughing out new clothes or details to make sure each character would read as a unique mouse and not easily mistaken for a different patron of the June Alley Inn. I knew I'd done a few commissions  in the last year (colored for the 2013 sketchbook due out at SDCC this year) that had some character/clothing designs I liked, so I opted to pull those up and re-use them:

These two I did on my London trip at the start of 2012. Each were inspired by architecture and sculpture I saw while there. So these two became Holton (on the left, who tells Nick Tapalansky & Alex Eckman Lawn's Story) and Alton (on the right, who tells Bill Willingham's story) I sat these two close together in the tavern, but only because of their London design connection 

This commission was to celebrate the engagement of some fans of mine, in fact, originally the ribbon-flag had the date of their happy day. The ladymouse on the balcony I thought had a nice dress that I'd like to draw again, so she became Odella (who tells Justin Gerard's story)

"A mouse guarding a pumpkin patch" was the request for this piece, and I took not only the design, but the 'guarding' bit as an occupation for him. For Legends of the Guard, he is now Orwin (who tells Ben Caldwell's story)

On two occasions, I used the main character from one of the contributor's stories as the storytellers, so it was a matter of drawing my interpretation of them:

For Stan Sakai's story, I felt the story might have more impact if the mice would be hearing it directly from who the tale happened to...it added a sincerity to my part of the book that was needed to do justice as a bridge in and out of Stan's story. She was un-named in the story, so I gave her the name Mira.

Lastly, Rick Geary's story is all told in the first person, so I had no choice but to have the main character also the mouse in the tavern narrating. In this case, Rick supplied me with the character's name: Edwy (as well as a background for his bio for the Hardcover extras page: The Storytellers.

To help me, I also made a floorplan chart showing where each character would be seated the majority of the book (as well as where each cover painting is hanging in the tavern). The floorplan is a top-down photo of my June Alley Inn model with the characters listed below and assigned a number/letter. The numbering was just to identify the mouse, the letter stood for which issue they told their tale in...this helped me distribute the characters around so we never spend too much time in any one corner of the bar.

Watercolor Wednesday: 

From last week's Watercolor Wednesday paintings: Here is the Knight Gnome. The sketch started life as a carved chess piece, but kept progressing towards 'character' rather than 'inanimate object'. I played off the standard gnome hat as a peaked & studded helm for the diminutive fighter. And now every time I see the final image, I think that he'd make a fun Christmas Tree ornament (though I don't know what connection he would have to the holiday).

The other piece from last week started as the idea for an 'ugly' mask...but felt like more fun if it really was a character's face. And besides having an unfortunate visage  I also don't think he looks too bright...so I dubbed him 'simpleton'

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

Upcoming Appearances:

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Legends of the Guard Vol 2. #3 cover process

With Legends Volume 2 in full solicitation swing, I'm back with another Legends cover process post. Last cover I mentioned considering having the main character be a musician...Well, I saved the idea for this cover and made the single musician a trio...a trio that could play so well, they'd call back the dead.

The cover started with some sketches and research into medieval instruments. After looking at several pages (and even listening to some recordings of people playing the instruments) I settled on bagpipes, an organetto, and something like a rebec. I took some liberties with them and the way they are played for the sake of being from mouse culture rather than man's. The dancing ghosts were also loosely sketched in my sketchbook so I could start to digitally compose a layout.

With sketches in hand, I worried about this cover and how it was going to work. Simply pasting together the drawings would not give me a full idea of this cover's final appearance or what pitfalls I would have to watch out for. So I did a bit more with tone and effects in the digital composite than I normally would. I played with some stock photos of trees in the background to give a foggy sense of depth.

The inks were a bit tricky because of the ghost effects...and at several times while inking I worried this cover wouldn't work the way I was proceeding with it, but I just pushed through figuring I'd make sense of it all in color. I inked this on two different sheets of bristol. The first was the 'real world' inks: ground, musician mice, and trees. The other sheet consisted of the mice and some sparkly effects I inked as dots. Before I started inking, I printed out the digital composite twice: one without the ghosts and one with just the ghosts. I added a few mice that were not in my initial rough, but I drew and inked them as I went.

The flats were rather quick, but took some advanced thought as to arranging the layers of them so I could achieve all the transparencies and ghost effects. I color held the trees and the ghost outlines on different layers. After the flat colors were established for the ground, sky, and musicians, I made some semi-transparent ghostly layers for the spirits' bodies. The ghosts are on multiple layers so that where they overlap there is a density change in their color. I kept the musician color choices fairly muted to make sure they didn't seem too out of place.

Here is a look at the final colors sans-text with all the rendering finished and the effects tweaked:

Issue 3 of Legends of the Guard volume 2 will feature stories by:
C.P. Wilson III, Cory Godbey, & Eric Canete

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Ever since getting back from Spectrum Live, I've wanted to play more in the world of gnomes, elves, fay, sprites, cluricauns,  and brownies. I tend to do some work in that direction anyhow, but the next few weeks of Watercolor Wednesdays will be firmly planted there. The first up of last week's watercolor pieces was inspired by my design of a Fairy creature for a Mayfair game.

The other piece from last week I built up rather slowly with lots of layers of watercolor. The worried little fay seemed to be in the middle of telling me his story as I painted him. I figure he's some sort of late night watch who keeps his eyes and ears on the moon and heavens and will-o-wisps and even the humans and their farm beasts in order to make sure the world passes at it's correct pace, in sync with prophetic charts and runic almanacs. He frets a lot, but only jingles his bell soundly when real trouble (cosmic or domestic) puts everything in jeopardy.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.


Upcoming Appearances:
Heroes Con: June 7-9

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Legends of the Guard Vol.2 #2 Cover Process

Back again with another look at the process for creating the cover for a Legends of the Guard Volume 2 issue. For this cover, I wanted to feature a lot of species of animal and one mouse. Originally the concept was for the mouse to be a musician...but I saved that idea for a different cover...

So instead of the mouse being a musician, I decided the should be a great speaker...such a great speaker, that with only words they can keep predatory animals at bay. I turned to the Mouse Guard RPG again for a list of animals that are in the mouse territories, but that I may not have drawn before. My final grouping consisted of a coyote, a badger, a bullfrog and a kestral (though I'd also toyed with a drawing of an opossum before scrapping it).

Scanning the several pages & pieces of paper I drew roughs on, I assembled this digital composite of the cover. The ease of digital process to allow me to scoot and shrink and bump each drawing a bit until I have the composition just the way that works (with the animals in proportion to one another). I tinted each animal to help me as I was making adjustments (and also later for inking) so that I could see where one animal began and the next ended.

For the inks, I printed out the digital layout on standard copy paper, but taped that to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore bristol. On a lightbox I was able to see the guide printout through the bristol and then ink on the surface of the bristol with Copic Multi-Liner pens (I like the 0.7 nib best). I tried to play a bit with line weight sand line texture to make each area or critter a bit different, but without overly relying on the inks to tell the story so I had some open space to color.

The colors started with flatting the areas out with base colors. Most of the color choices for each animal were fairly straight forward, except for the coyote, who I made a little more yellow-brown than normal...but did so to avoid the confusion that it was a wolf. The colors for the mouse's attire were meant to echo some of the tones in the animals he was addressing.

Here is another look at the final rendered cover for issue 2 sans-text & logo:

Issue 2 will feature stories from Rick Geary, Christian Slade, & Jemma Salume

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Last week's watercolor pieces were D&D style elementals. I started with the tree-guy, but then decided some of the branches looked more like roots...and thought it would be fun to do a series of elementals.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 

Spectrum Live: May 17-19

Heroes Con: June 7-9

Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

*more 2013 dates coming*

Legends of the Guard Vol.2 #1 Cover Process

The second volume of Legends of the guard will be starting up soon. The first issue is being solicited this month, so let your comic shop know you want a copy. In this post, I wanted to share the process of making the cover for issue one.The inspiration for this cover came from two sources: The Mouse Guard RPG handbook and illustrator J. B. Monge.

 First, I leafed through the 'Denizens of the Territories" chapter in the RPG book to see if there were any species of animal listed there that I hadn't drawn that might be interesting enough for a cover. I landed on 'Salamander' and thought they would be very fun to draw and build a story around. I also had started studying Jean Baptiste Monge's illustrations, specifically his illustrations for fairy folk who had loaded up animals with gear & supplies. In my sketchbook I drew out some ideas for a mouse cave explorer & some Salamanders.

I scanned the drawings from my sketchbook and mocked up a layout for the cover in Photoshop. Placing the mouse, the background stones and the salamanders on various layers, I could re-size and adjust the placement of each until I was happy with a layout (I also had to make sure there was room for the logo and such). Because so much of this cover would be reliant on the lighting from my inks & the final colors, I laid in a toned background and added some lighting references.

Using the above digital composite as a guide on a lightbox I inked the cover on Strathmore 300 series bristol. The contour lines came first with a lot of stippling that followed to give all the suggestion of the direction of light. You may also notice that I added a different salamander. In the rough, I'd just copied over my 2nd salamander drawing to remind me I wanted another one in there. While I was inking I sketched up a third salamander and placed the sketch under the bristol to ink him on the final surface.

Once the inks were done, I scanned them and started the process of coloring by flatting in all the color areas. This step is mainly to establish that different areas are different colors (the fur is different from the coat, is different from the rocks, is different from the salamanders, etc.) While these were not my final colors, I did try and have the mouse's hat echo the color of the salamanders (since the shape of it echoes their tails) and his coat echo the background color.

For the final rendering, I muted a lot of the colors and tried to get more contrasting lighting effects than I normally would. Here's another look at the cover art sans-logo & text.

Legends of the Guard Volume 2 #1 will feature stories from Ben Caldwell, Nick Tapalansky & Alex Eckman-Lawn, and Stan Sakai.

Watercolor Wednesday: 
The watercolor from last week's Watercolor Wednesday is a piece called "The President of Nothing...Yet".

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
*more 2013 dates coming*

Legends of the Guard's Eisner:

Little over a week ago, Legends of the Guard won the 2011 Eisner for Best Anthology! I'm really proud of this book, and it's all thanks to the contributors who worked on the book. I set out to do an anthology in which the contributors had as much freedom as possible. I chose those storytellers for good reason, I liked their work and I could trust them to do something amazing if not tethered too much editorially.

So a huge thank you an congratulations to the following artists and storytellers. Not only would we have not won the Eisner without them, but also without whom the book itself wouldn't have been possible. (names link to their sites, interview links to their interviews about working on Legends):

Jeremy Bastian: Interview

Ted Naifeh

Alex Sheikman: Interview

Gene Ha & Lowell Francis: Interview

Alex Kain & Sean Rubin: Interview

Terry Moore: Interview

Guy Davis

Jason Shawn Alexander: Interview

Katie Cook: Interview

Nate Pride: Interview

Craig Rousseau: Interview

Karl Kerschl: Interview

Mark Smylie: Interview

Joao Lemos: Interview

Paul Morrissey & I are already working with contributors for Legends of the guard volume 2 (set to start in 2012) such as: Jim McCann & Janet Lee, Kenneth Rockafort, Bill Willingham, Nick Tapalansky & Alex Eckman Lawn, Eric Canete, & Stan Sakai!!

Upcoming Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21
New York Comic Con: Oct. 13-16