Muppet Sherlock Holmes Cover Process

Some folks may have already seen cover artwork I did for Boom's upcoming Muppet Sherlock Holmes. However, what I originally drew is different than what you saw. When told the assignment, the casting had Kermit as Sherlock and Fozzie as Watson. I was busy and went radio-silent as I worked on my cover. I turned it in and found out that the casting had changed to Gonzo as Sherlock.

With the artwork already colored I needed to patch in Gonzo without disturbing any more of the colored work than I had to. I went back to my original inkwork and used a lightbox to draw a Gonzo that would cover up as much of Kermit as possible. Because I had to change some of the pose (Gonzo's nose blocked the bubble pipe in it's original position, so I had to move his arm) there were some areas where Kermit would be exposed, so I had to draw new background on my patch.

Scanning the Gonzo patch I placed it in my layered color file. I erased all the layers associated with Kermit as well as the Kermit line art. I colored Gonzo and used the eye dropper to get color matches where I was filling in exposed background and making a new color hold for the patched background. From a casting point of view I think I prefer Kermit as Sherlock (even though Gonzo is my favorite Muppet Show character), but I was able to give the handle of Gonzo's eyeglass a little chicken head motif and anytime I can do that it makes me happy.


Legends of the GuardIssue 4 of the Mouse Guard Anthology is now in previews (order code: JUN10 0748). Here is the full cover for the issue. The covers all have 1 paragraph stories associated with them that are included in each issue. But more importantly, this issue will feature stories by Karl Kerschl, Craig Rousseau, & Mark Smylie!


Fan Art:Martin Kirby sent this in and writes:
My friend, Melanie, and I were perusing around Forbidden Planet in Newcastle where I ended up picking up one of your Mouseguard books...Once I got back home I more or less immediately started sketching out some ideas for mouseguard characters... I couldn't pass up the opportunity to draw us out in all our small-statured glory!

Upcoming Appearances:*
Kids Read Comics: June 12th (Sat. only)

Harper Woods Library reading: June 28 6pm
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added