Usagi Yojimbo Dragon Bellow Cover 2 Process

I was fortunate enough to be asked by IDW and Stan Sakai to do a run of covers on the new Usagi Yojimbo reprints of 'The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy'. I'll be doing six in total, and for this blogpost I'll be sharing my process for the creation of the cover art for issue #2.

This issue is currently up for pre-order through Diamond with the code MAY210473. Just ask your local comic shop to order it for you, or order it though an online retailer. 

The issue will be in shops July 28, 2021

To the left you can see the finished cover, but below I'll go through the steps in creating it.

Layout/Pencils

For this second cover, the subject was easy. There's a great fight in the issue between Usagi and Shingen the leader of the Neko Ninja (cat ninja). The fight starts in a forest, but then moves to a cliff-side waterfall. I loved the Sherlock & Moriarty duel at Reichenbach Falls vibe it had and set my cover there.

I drew Usagi and Shingen each separately on copy paper in leaping poses, and placed them into my template in Photoshop (keeping in mind where the logo bar will crop the image) There I could resize them and shift them until I liked their placement. Then I spent way too long looking at photos and drawings of waterfalls to figure out how to draw mine, which I also did on copy paper. I then did a quick digital paint test to see how all the shapes and forms blocked out against each other.

Inks:

When the above layout was approved by the editor and Stan, I started the inks. First step was to print the layout file onto copy paper (over two sheets that had to be taped together at the seam) and tape that to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to ink the cover art using the printout as my pencils lines. This way in the end the inked artwork is very crisp and clean with no need to erase pencils lines. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens to ink the art (the 0.7 and 0.3 nibs).

I left a gap around the characters and didn't let the waterfall inks touch them so that it would help push the background back further, but also to help me in the next step of digital coloring.

Color Flats:

The inks were approved and I scanned them in to Photoshop to start the coloring process. This first part of coloring digitally is called 'flatting' and is a professional version of coloring inside the lines. Establishing what each area's color is and where it ends. This not only is a color base for the image, but also allows a quick flat color area to be able to quickly isolate to render or make adjustments on. 

In this step I also established all my color holds (areas where I want the black inkwork to be a color other than black). The main one was the background (I also used color holds on Usagi's scar and a bit of the detail on Shingen).

Final Colors:

Here again is the finished art (this time sans-logo). To render all of the color I mostly used the Dodge and Burn tools (Photoshop tools based on real photography techniques for purposely over or under exposing film as it develops). Burn is do darken and Dodge is to lighten. I use a stock Photoshop textured brush as I add shadows and highlights with these tools so the work looks a little more organic and less digital.

It's an honor to be asked by Stan to do these covers and to get his approvals as I work through each cover. 

Usagi Yojimbo: The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy #2 is out in stores July 28th