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

Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary

The Usagi Yojimbo Dojo will be publishing a 40th Anniversary Usagi Yojimbo Tribute book this November. It will be by fans and for fans of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo. Limited to 500 copies, available upon request for free (just pay postage) while supplies last. Since this will be a non-profit labor of love, any and all contributions to help cover the costs of printing are appreciated GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-40th-anniversary-usagi-yojimbo-tribute-project

To request a copy email Steve Hubbell: usagiyojimbodojo@yahoo.com
with subject line "Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary book"

To the left you can see my finished pinup for the book, and below I go through the process of creating it.

This piece started long before I knew about the 40th anniversary tribute book with a commission request by a fan who wanted a Mouse Guard Usagi crossover piece. I drew Usagi on copy paper, scanned him and placed him into a Photoshop template for the size of the commission, and then printed that out to use as reference to draw the branches and Guardmouse.

These drawings were scanned back into Photoshop and given a quick color blocking to help me see the difference between the leaves and the ground and the branches, etc.

I printed that above layout and taped it to a back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol.  On my Huion Lightpad I could se ethrough the bristol surface down to the printout to use as a guide while I inked. The pen I used were Copic Multiliner SP 0.7 & 0.3 nibs.

There was a lot going on in terms of depth on this piece and I wanted it not to get too busy, but still have bursts of texture and value so the viewer's eye could clearly see all the forms. 

The original was then sent off to the fan who commissioned it.

Then Steve Hubbell reached out about the tribute book asking if I could contribute something. I was so slammed with freelance work, commissions, and Convention prep, I didn't have time to create something new, so I made a plan to take the square commission and get it tall enough to fit a standard comic size. To do this I drew two birds and photoshopped in a cobbled together background pattern based on some Japanese patterns to become top and bottom border designs. Once the pencils and patterns were digitally assembled, I inked the two bird pieces in the same process as the main commission piece described above.

The original inks for these birds are available for sale in my online store:
mouseguard.bigcartel.com

With all the inked drawings scanned, I started the process of color flatting the piece.

This is the first step of coloring that is essentially a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. It's all about establishing color areas, that the fur is a different color than the clothes, or the leaves, or the branches, etc.

In this step I also established color holds (areas where I want the linework to be a color other than black) on the leaf veins, Usagi's scar, the ground texture, and two on the decorative pattern behind the birds.

The final step was to render the image which I did mostly with the dodge and burn tools, but also a paintbrush and some special layers to created the dappled shadows on the scene.

Again, to request a FREE copy of the tribute book email Steve Hubbell: usagiyojimbodojo@yahoo.com
with subject line "Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary book" and cover shipping. You can also charitably donate to the GoFundMe to help him with the costs: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-40th-anniversary-usagi-yojimbo-tribute-project

Usagi Yojimbo: Ice & Snow #5 Cover

For the Ice & Snow Usagi Yojimbo series now being published at Dark Horse I was asked by Stan Sakai to contribute two covers. To the left you can see my final cover art for issue #5.

This cover was new territory for me. In the past my Usagi covers have either been for classic reprints where the entire arc was finished and ready to read, or the Usagi/TMNT crossovers where I completed once piece to sum up the entire series based on some amount of completed material. But, for Ice & Snow, we were working far enough in advance that I didn't have any of Stan's pages for the issue, just an outline & description.

Below I'll go through the steps of creating the piece.

For Issue 5, all I was told for a long while was that it was a stand alone issue. Then Stan gave me an outline of the plot that involved a mountain town over-run by scary cats.

So, I started drawing characters on copy paper. I certainly pulled from my experience drawing the Cats Trio characters. Usagi and Yukichi were easier to draw (as they were meant to be more straight, no action, just calm reaction. The setting was based on a 3D model I found online and rotated to the right angle for the figures.

I scanned in the drawings of everything, assembled them and did quick color blocking to get approval.

When the above was approved, I printed out the layout/pencils and taped them to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol with some painter's tape. On my Huion lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol to the layout and use it as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.3 & 0.7 nibs) as I inked the piece.

The complicated amount of overlapping figures made my main goal when inking to vary the density of texture so that the forms could be read clearly from one another.

Stan & Co. approved the inks and I was able to scan them and begin the coloring process. That first step in coloring is known as 'flatting' which is a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines with flat color (no texture, no shading).

Some of the color choices were roughed in for the layout, but still needed to be adjusted for value, hue, and saturation to go with the more stark inks.

At this stage I also established the color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) for the snow, cat's eyes, clothing pattern, and Usagi's scar.

The last step to coloring (seen below) is the rendering. I used the dodge and burn tools along with a stock textured brush to add shadows and highlights. 

Usagi Yojimbo Ice & Snow #5 will be in stores Feb. 14th

Usagi Yojimbo: Ice & Snow #4 Cover

For the Ice & Snow Usagi Yojimbo series now being published at Dark Horse I was asked by Stan Sakai to contribute two covers. To the left you can see my final cover art for issue #4.

This cover was new territory for me. In the past my Usagi covers have either been for classic reprints where the entire arc was finished and ready to read, or the Usagi/TMNT crossovers where I completed once piece to sum up the entire series based on some amound of completed material. But, for Ice & Snow, we were working far enough in advance that I didn't have any of Stan's pages for the issue, just an outline & description.

Below I'll go through the steps of creating the piece.

I was given a PDF of inked pages from issues 1 & 2 showing Usagi and Yukichi in the snowy mountaintops of Northern Japan. And Stan let me know that the climax to issue 4 is a fight between Usagi and his old enemy Jei on a frozen lake.

I'd never drawn Jei professionally (only a commission for a fan), and I wanted to push in close on a duel between the two. I started drawing the characters separately on copy paper. To make sure they were both going to fit while fighting, I had to make use of the vertical nature of a cover and have Jei leaping/thrusting down with his weapon as Usagi takes a near miss over his shoulder. 

I scanned in the drawings of the two figures, digitally blocked in their forms with some color, and painted a simple background idea so I could send it off for approval.

When the pencils were approved, I printed out the layout/pencils and taped them to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol with some painter's tape. On my Huion lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol to the layout and use it as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.3 & 0.7 nibs) as I inked the piece.

I had to build up several different dark areas (Usagi's pants, Jei's clothes, and Jei's hair) and tried to give them all a slightly different density and in the case of Jei's hair a different line quality. I also left a gap between the characters and any of the ink lines for the background. This is partly to make the coloring easier, but also just to separate them and push an idea of distance before color is even added.

Stan & Co. approved the inks and I was able to scan them and begin the coloring process. That first step in coloring is known as 'flatting' which is a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines with flat color (no texture, no shading).

Some of the color choices were roughed in for the layout, but still needed to be adjusted for value, hue, and saturation to go with the more stark inks.

At this stage I also established the color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) for the ice cracks, trees, and Usagi's scar.

The last step to coloring (seen below) is the rendering. I used the dodge and burn tools along with a stock textured brush to add shadows and highlights. I then also painted in the falling snow on a new layer.

Usagi Yojimbo Ice & Snow #4
will be in stores January 10th, 2024!

TMNT/USAGI 5 Covers Process 3/3: Colors

 For the past two weeks I've been sharing the process for creating my 5 adjoining covers for the TMNT/Usagi WhereWhen crossover miniseries. I've covered the pencils/layouts and the inks. Today I'm sharing the coloring process. Above you can see the finished colored and assembled covers. Below I'll walk through a bit of the process.

With the inked covers all digitally reassembled, I started the first part of digital coloring called 'flatting' where you are adding flat colors to establish all the color areas in the piece.

This is a professional version of coloring-inside-the-lines to establish the colors for the piece, but also to make it easy to isolate and grab those color areas again and again as I do the rendering. At this step I also added in the color holds (areas where I wanted the line-art to be a color other than black) to Usagi's scar, Tomoe & WhereWhen's pupils, and all the sword blade lines, as well as some of the debris I decided was further back.

To start the final colors in Photoshop CS5, I needed to add shading, highlights, and texture. To do this, I rendered all the covers like one big piece using the Dodge and Burn tools while using a stock Photoshop Brush. Dodge and Burn are tools carried over from Photoshop being a photo retouching tool and are terms for purposefully over or under exposing areas of photographs in a dark room.

More simply Burn darkens whatever values/colors are there, and Dodge will lighten them. The textured brush adds in some random and natural variation as I render giving the piece a bit of texture so it doesn't look quite so 'digital'.

When I was working on the layout of the 5 adjoining covers, I had no idea what to do with the background. I even wondered if I should leave it white and make the piece a bit more graphic (I was thinking of a Joe Mad X-Men cover from the 90's). But as I was flatting the piece, I eyedroppered up the orange color I had as a placeholder for the robot debris and flooded the sky with it––and didn't hate it.

Adding in some gradients and color shifts so that it was brightest at Dr. WhereWhen and darkest at the edges made a difference and both felt like the fatigue of battle as well as reminded me of a Usagi group piece of Stan's.

Most of my color choices were made when I was doing the layouts for this piece and all based on how the characters are colored in the comic already. But, I already have some shifts in color I generally prefer, like warmer versions of cool colors, more muted yellow greens for the turtles, and a warmer creamier color for Usagi's fur. That being said, I had to make further alterations to the base colors once I had the orange background in. Color perception is influenced by the colors surrounding them, so I had to make subtle adjustments to make the piece cohesive.

I also had to lasso areas (with a many-pixeled feathered edge) on each character after rendering them to adjust the highlight colors to be warmer and more yellow/red/magenta to imply the lighting of the background was affecting the characters as well––and that effect needed to be more intense closer to the middle of the composition.

For all the clockwork robot debris, I started with them being a base color that was somewhere between grey/brown and orange. I then went through on two different layers just making some pieces base tones lighter (with a screen layer) or darker (with a multiply layer). I then rendered everything the same way as the figures, while trying to make sense of those heaps of parts, I also knew they needed to be background and not pull focus away from the characters.

So, the rendering detail isn't as deep––and I did very little to shift the colors of various parts to make them look different from one another, I only employed the same lasso color shift to correspond with the intensity of the background.

There were a few areas I did special effects-like tricks like a subtle yellow starburst in the background radiating out from the blast near WhereWhen's wrist. The eyes of Wherewhen and Tomoe got a little effect tweak because of the color hold and I could render in a more rounded shadow and highlight into the pupil. The biggest effect was the keypad on WhereWhen's forearm on cover 5. In the comic it glows a bit, so I added some color hold effects as well as a screen glowy layer and a subtle starburst radiating out from it.

I knew the schedule would be tight getting this piece done on time when I started the layout. The trouble with adjoining covers is that you kinda have to get them all done by the time just the first one is due (because the colors on the background and the overlapping characters need to flow together without seams).

The work was going along smoothly as we neared Christmas, and I even made sure I'd have some down-time over the Holiday before this was due. Unfortunately, I got COVID (exposed on the 24th, symptomatic on the 26th, tested positive on the 27th). I was down for over a week, which really cut into this schedule. Once I was able to sit up without coughing or aching too badly, I just focused on coloring for as long as I could before needing to lay down again. The art was due on the 10th of January (only for cover #1––but as I said, I had to have the whole thing done because of choosing to do adjoining covers). I was up until 4AM on the 9th (technically the 10th by that point) when I finished uploading the completed files. All done, on time, while recovering from COVID.

The TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo WhereWhen five issue mini series starts April 12th. My covers are called 'Retailer Incentive' covers and will arrive in a 1/50 ratio for retailers.

I'll be selling all my inked covers together in my online store the same day the first issue goes on-sale in stores: mouseguard.bigcartel.com

TMNT/USAGI 5 Covers Process 2/3: Inks

Last week I showed my Pencils/Layout stage for my TMNT/Usagi 5 issue adjoining covers. This week I'm going through the inking process for this massive piece. Above you can see a photo of the inked covers all lined up on a table in my studio before I scanned them.

I printed out the enormous layout for all five covers which was 4 feet long when everything was taped together. On a Huion A3 Lightpad, I taped a piece of bristol over the printed layout and started inking each cover seprately.

The trick was that covers 2, 3, & 4 were all narrower since the 'bleed' (the extra area of safety art for when the printed comic is cut to size) was just a bit of the covers adjacent to them––and figuring all that out as well as doing the math and making sure it all went together was a little stressful.

As I finished a cover, I'd tape the next piece of bristol onto the previous cover and continue inking any forms that carried over (Usagi's leg, Leo's sword, clockwork parts, WhereWhen's arm, etc.), then I'd carefully tape the newly started cover to the prinout, and carefully untape the previous cover from everything and carry on.

To ink this piece I use Copic Multiliner SP pens. These are technical nylon nibbed pens similar to Microns, but I prefer  Copic's version. The SP's are an aluminum bodied pen with the option to swap out worn nibs and empty ink cartridges (though I almost never need to replace nibs––one of the reasons I prefer these over Microns)

There was a lot of detail and texture across these 5 covers, and with a composition having this many characters and details I like using line weight and density/design of texture to help visually break up the space and describe different objects.

Most of this is done with the 0.7 nib, and I just feather my pressure or go back over areas as I ink to get the desired line weight and sensitivity. The 0.3 nib is usually only brought in for fine facial details like eyes, noses and mouths where a slight error in thickness or contour can spoil the entire piece.

Some of the textures I already had a mental catalog of from my past TMNT covers such as their back shells, belts, and elbow/knee pads. But I then had to play with other densities of line and pattern to help differentiate the parts of the Usagi crew's Samurai armor.

Dr. WhereWhen had unique textures all his own, much different from the more organic forms I usually focus on in my work. Still, I managed to make sure he was battle worn, dented, damaged, and textured so he didn't artistically look out of place with the rest of the piece.

For the clockwork robot debris, I really had to play with scale of form as well as density of line & shadow to help make sure that while it looked like the chaos of battle, it didn't look like static on a TV with no discernible forms or places for the eye to rest––a lesson I learned when doing a similar junk pile for the Plotmasters Revisit episode of R-Wars 

When all the covers were inked and scanned, I used little crop and calibration marks (not seen in these single cover inks, but can be spotted in the photo of all the covers at the top of this blogpost) to reassemble them all.

This was a step I dreaded, because I knew that even with my taking time to do the math for the layout, and carefully aligning each sheet of bristol with the layout crop and/or bleed lines, there was always a chance I wouldn't be able to get all the pieces back together again without some hassle and/or gaps.

There were a few minor gaps and adjustments to make. I made a new layer in photoshop to digitally ink over any gaps in the seams, so that the line of one form smoothly flowed over to the next cover. All-in-all, this process that I dreaded as a potential nightmare took less than 15 minutes. 

Below are detail images of the inks for each character:

Donatello

Usagi

Tomoe

Leonardo

Raphael

Gen

Dr. WhereWhen

Dr. WhereWhen & clockwork robot debris

Michelangelo

Jotaro

Below is the full spread of all 5 covers scanned and assembled with gap corrections (as well as the layout grid for cops and bleed for each cover.

The TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo WhereWhen five issue mini series starts April 12th. My covers are called 'Retailer Incentive' covers and will arrive in a 1/50 ratio for retailers.

I'll be selling all my inked covers together in my online store the same day the first issue goes on-sale in stores: mouseguard.bigcartel.com

Next week I'll cover the colors for the 5 adjoining covers!

TMNT/USAGI 5 Covers Process 1/3: Layout/Pencils

 I was invited by Scott Dunbier of IDW and Stan Sakai to contribute five variant covers for the upcoming TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo crossover titled 'Dr. WhereWhen' written and Drawn by Stan. It was my pleasure to do a cover for his last teamup/crossover story a few years ago, which then lead to my doing a run of Usagi covers. Scott told me that I could make the covers non-issue specific, and while that was an idea I rejected at first, I somehow then got into the idea of making all 5 covers adjoin to form one complete battle image when lined up. 

Of course, it's impossible not to think of Jim Lee's fantastic 4 adjoining covers for X-Men #1. Those made a big impact on me when I was a teen. For my TMNT/Usagi cover, I had 5 issues of real-estate to fill, 4 turtles, two rabbits, a cat, a rhino, and one cyborg villain. I was nervous to try something so big, but in some ways, it felt like a bucket list type comic gig to pay homage to this cover of Jim's while also getting to Draw TMNT and Usagi.

Wanting to avoid matching Jim Lee's composition exactly, I decided to move the villain in. Originally I wanted him on cover #3, dead center, but when I noodled with a thumbnail or two, I realized it would be better to shift him on to #4 and have an asymmetrical balance with six of the heroes coming in from one side and only two on the other.

Here you can see my list of pairings, wanting to get one Turtle and one Usagi character on covers 1, 2, 3, & 5. I also made notes of which character was larger in the foreground, and which was further behind in the back––staggering the IP's so that each franchise got the same number of close-ups.

But before I drew any of the hero characters, I had to draw Dr. WhereWhen––our cyborg villain––so I could figure out how I was going to make that character work. Scott & Stan had provided me with a digital Issue 1 of the series already finished (and inks of issue 2, and pencils of issue 3), and Stan's drawings of the character were a design that worked well in his style, but would look mismatched if I drew him similarly to Stan's design against the way I draw the Turtles and Usagi characters. Having drawn a number of covers for Stan, I've had to walk that edge of interpreting characters in my style, while also making them clearly the same characters that fans know and love.

I also knew that inherent in these kinds of adjoining covers will mean there is some dead-space in the whole composition because of needing to avoid putting anything important into the edge of each issue's cover where it's trimmed. So, I planned to make sure I had some characters or their weapons overlap those seams and crossover onto the next cover.

While Usagi's flying kick does end up crossing over the cover gap, it was because I ran out of space before hitting the edge of the paper before getting his foot drawn. A little displaced foot on the same sheet of paper would allow me to adjust once I had my pencil drawings scanned.

I draw my pencils of each character on regular copy paper with a mechanical pencil in HB lead. And while I did have a thumbnail somewhere before I started this, it wasn't much more than a scribble, so I was focused on drawing each character in a cool pose, with the idea that most of the background figures had to be leaping and the foreground characters needed to be leaning or hunched.

Stan had drawn some specific details for the turtles' belts and weapon storage. So, instead of just drawing the turtles the way I always do, I looked to Stan's interiors to give the subtle changes to their 'costumes' so that they fit with the interiors. I also tried to make the ties of their bandannas echo Usagi's ears.

To avoid tangents and worry about compositional messes, I sometimes find it easier to draw some character's body parts separately. Unlike Usagi's foot, here I drew Tomoe's hand and sword hilt apart from her arm on purpose. That way once the piece was scanned I can turn and alter the position not just for her hand's placement, but also where the long blade of her sword ends up. It gave me more flexibility to not have her sword in an awkward spot with Leonardo––and when I draw compositions like this, I don't necessarily know how the parts are going to assemble, what will get covered up, what will be a tangent to fix, etc.

For Raph's pose, I looked at the cover to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4 (which also became the box art for the NES game, as well as a poster I had in my room in middle school). I loved that pose and Did my best version of copying it, while also mirroring it so that he was facing the correct way to menacingly stare down Dr. WhereWhen.

I also left his sais out of the drawing originally, opting to loosely sketch them on the back side of the paper over a light pad until I got the geometry correct, then while still on the light pad I could trace them over on the front with confidence. 

It wasn't just the turtle's wardrobes that had changed for this mini series, but also all the Usagi characters. They had elaborate samurai armor with lots of details to figure out and interpret. There was a constant window open on my desktop of Issue 1's interiors and well as a google search window for samurai armor where I could look closely at details specific to Stan's drawings as well as historic record.

For Gen the Rhino here, I planned that I could have him crushing one of the baddie's clockwork robot's heads in his left hand, and place the displaced sword in his right. What I didn't plan for was how I drew his head too small, but that was something I could easily fix in Photoshop after it was scanned.

For the last cover the plan was to have Dr. WhereWhen's arm crossing over into it and Jotaro (who is secretly Usagi's son) very close to getting a fatal blow in on our villain. 

This piece wasn't working for me though. I was looking through some reference photos of stances with a single samurai sword and found something like these sketches, but it wasn't dynamic enough, and it didn't work well with the already established pose of Dr. WhereWhen. Sometimes when I do compositions like this (without a solid thumbnail) I run the risk of generating sketches that get abandoned rather than adjusted because there's no good way to get them to work without starting over.

Instead I went with this more furious batting stance, which left room in the lower left for the villainous cyborg's arm in the foreground. I was very happy with the energy I was able to get with this pose.

The other struggle with Jotaro was getting him drawn so that he both looked enough like Usagi that he could be his son and could be mistaken for him by one of the TMNT who have only met our hero a handful of times––but also looks like an individual. Stan is able to make the distinction with some simple and subtle shape changes to his head, but mostly through the nose being bigger and darker. It took me a little while before I found what I thought was a good balance of Jotaro being his own man, but also the son of his father.

Michelangelo was the last character to draw. But this point, I'd both started assembling all of the drawings into a template (which showed me what space I had left) and I'd also done a quick doodle of a leaping and leaning Mike with nunchucks flailing that had a fairly tight head.

The pose had to match the energy of Jotaro, but also fit in an already tighter cover due to WhereWhen's arm eating up so much of the composition. It means that I knew a bunch of Mike's body wouldn't be seen––so while I had to sketch those parts out to make sure everything lined up, I didn't need to do finished pencils on them.

A cover has more than leaping and posing characters though. The background (as well as some of the foreground) was going to be full of clockwork robot debris––foes already struck down by our heroes. In the digital rough, I'd painted in orange blobs to give me an idea of how much junk needed to fill the space without overwhelming it. I printed out what I had so-far, and then on a light pad drew five pages of clockwork robot debris while looking at Stan's drawings of them in the materials I was sent.

Below is the entire 5 issue layout assembled, all my sketches and drawings, photoshop corrections, resizing, and edits, as well as some quick blocked in flat colors to help me see where each character started what was junk and where the other character ended (and with all the armor detail, getting base colors really helped me figure out what I was looking at when one character overlapped another).

You can see the guidelines here that show how the 'bleed' for the covers are actually part of the adjacent cover's live area (other than the left side of cover #1 and the right side of cover #2)...if 'bleed' and 'live area' are too inside baseball for you, no worries––

What you need to know is that The TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo WhereWhen five issue mini series starts April 12th. My covers are called 'Retailer Incentive' covers and will arrive in a 1/50 ratio for retailers.

I'll be selling all my inked covers together in my online store the same day the first issue goes on-sale in stores: mouseguard.bigcartel.com

Next week I'll cover the inks for the 5 adjoining covers!