Recent Sketchcover Commissions

Here are some of the recent Sketchcover commissions I've done at Heroes Con & SDCC

Lieam with the Black Axe

For my new Sketchbook 'Axe Wielders' I created a new illustration of Lieam with the Black Axe and a runic 11 (as he is the 11th wielder of the ancient weapon).

I know fans have been long waiting for a story that takes place after the Winter storyline, so seeing this illustration of Lieam must feel like a tease, and for that I apologize and thank you for your patience.

Below I'll share the process into making this new piece of art for the sketchbook about all the past wielders of the Black Axe.

It started with a loose sketch of Lieam with the axe that I scanned and color blocked in Photoshop. There's a bit of a homage here to Sean Rubin & Alex Kain's Legends of the Guard story, so I then looked at a lot of photos of bears until I found one that would fit where it looked like it was behind him, but also shrunk down enough to fit in the frame.

I did a draw-over that photo to get a pencil version of the bear's key points I needed to include.

As you can see below, I opted to cover over much of the bear with a stone den opening and also included ferns (barely visible here).

With a printout of the above rough (and perhaps a bit more work done on that stone den and fern leaves) I taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series brisol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to ink the piece seeing through to the printout to use as a guide. 

I used Copic Multiliner pens (the 0.7 nib mostly) to ink the piece. With all of Lieam's bracken cloak, lineweight had a lot to do with making sure the image was readable. I also used more texture on the fern leaves to help differentiate from the more open bits of Lieam's cloak and the bear's fur.

When the inks were finished I scanned them and started the coloring process. That first step is all about establishing flat color areas (known as flatting) with no lighting or texture. A professional version of coloring-in-the-lines.

Most of the color choices were straightforward, though I did have to play a bit to get something that worked in color harmony as well as value-play.

At this step I also established color holds (areas where I wanted to linework to be a color other than black) and did so for the runic number (and later the bear's eye)

Here again is the final rendered artwork included in the new sketchbook.

The colors were finished using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a stock textured brush to add shadows and highlights.

The Mouse Guard sketchbook 'Axe Wielders' is available in my online store:
mouseguard.bigcartel.com

Farrer Forging the Black Axe

For a new Mouse Guard Sketchbook titled 'Axe Wielders' about the past wielders of the Black Axe, I created a new piece of Artwork of Farrer forging the ebon blade itself.

Axe Lore was fresh in my mind from the Dawn of the Black Axe mini-series Gabriel Rodriguez and I did together, and it felt only fitting that rather than feature one wielder above another for the cover of the sketchbook, I'd show Farrer creating the mythic weapon.

The sketchbook debuts at SDCC this weekend, but will be available in my online store shortly after. And below is more info about the process of creating the artwork.

Pencils started with a drawing of Farrer himself with his hammer and tongs. I watched a few blacksmithing videos showing axe forging to get the idea of how the Black Axe would have been made. His Hammer and tongs were designs I'd made long ago (and Gabe used in Dawn of the Black Axe for one flashback panel)

Other drawings of the anvil, the axe's barley-twist handle, and Farrer's shop were assembled together in Photoshop (in fact I took a few stabs at the shop environment before I was happy). The Celtic knot-work around the forge was inspired from the illuminated page from Fall showing a stylized illustration of this same scene.

With the above pencils in shape, I printed them out and taped them to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use as a guide while I inked. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 nib mostly).

The texture is mostly in the environment around Farrer and his linework is fairly open. What felt odd to me as I inked this was leaving so much of the normally almost entirely inked in axe open for the lighting effects of the forge glow and the hot ore being hammered.

When the inks were finished I scanned them and started the coloring process in Photoshop. The first step of digital coloring is establishing color areas with flat colors (this process is known as 'flatting') and is basically a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines.

With so much of the environment being about lighting and glow that would be added via painting and rendering later, the flats were very hard to make look right––just base colors. At this stage I also established color holds (areas where I want the linework to be a color other than black) on Farrer's tears, the coals, flame, glow, water ripples, and the hot axe head.

The last step was to render the piece. Normally most everything I do in this step is with Photoshop's Dodge and burn tool, but for so many of those glow transitions I used a paintbrush to softly blend in my color transitions.

The dodge and burn tools with a stock texture brush still did do a lot of the heavy lifting to add shadows and highlights with some pebbly texture.

The Mouse Guard Sketchbook 'Axe Wielders'

will be available in my online store shortly after I return from SDCC

mouseguard.bigcartel.com

 

SDCC 2025!

San Diego Comic Con is next weekend! I'll have a 10' x 10' booth #4606 full of Mouse Guard Hardcovers, RPGs, Sketchbooks, Prints, Tees, Stickers, Single Dawn of the Black Axe issues, Original Art and more. 2025 is the 20th anniversary of Mouse Guard which means this SDCC is the anniversary of where I walked up to the Archaia booth and showed Mark Smylie my self-published issue. 

Signatures are always free (other than on MtG cards–which are $5 per card) on anything you buy from me -or- brought from home.

Julia and I will be joined by our niece Kate and my best friend Jesse (real-life Kenzie) to help with transactions and keeping the booth stocked. 

Below is more info about where to find me and some special things I'll have at the show.

Booth 4606 

Inside lobby F

The BOOM! Booth 2229 will have this SDCC exclusive 
Walter Simonson Dawn of the Black Axe #1 cover
Friday at 12:30PM I'll be doing a signing there for this cover.

A new Mouse Guard Sketchbook featuring illustrations 

and text about all of the past wielders of the Black Axe.
(These will be available in my online store shortly after we return from SDCC)

Original watercolor paintings of Bardrick and Siobhan from Dawn of the Black Axe will be available for sale. Each is 9" x 12"––and it's rare for me to offer watercolored illustrations these days

Original inks for the 20th Anniversary print (I'll have the prints available at SDCC as well)
This piece will be framed and available for purchase.

And while this is a photo from last year,
I suspect the booth setup to look similar to this for you to keep an eye open for:

Dawn of the Black Axe #1 Simonson SDCC cover

Mouse Guard: Dawn of the Black Axe issue #1 had several Variant covers, but while the issue has been out for a few months––you probably have not yet seen this cover by the legendary Walter Simonson!
Walt has always been kind and supportive of my work and Mouse Guard, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do a cover. It will be released at SDCC as an exclusive.

Walt was gracious enough to share steps of his process below and I also wanted to show my colors on his work as well.

Pencils:

My editor shared this drawing Walt provided  with the note that Walt would like for his drawing of the Black Axe in this cover to be the axe going through the logo instead of the standard one on the other covers. I agreed to do some editing work on the logo image and he could proceed.

Inks:

I don't know what Walt inks with these days, but I know he's been a fan of technical or drafting pens in the past. I was provided with this scan to work with for the colors and logo alignment.

Flats:

In this step I was just about placing flat color in the color areas (fur, cloak, helm, grass, tree, etc) as well as establishing color holds (areas where I want the ink lines to be a color other than black) on the sunburst and rays, and where they overlapped Bardrick's ear.

Color:

Most of the cover was rendered out with a combination of a soft paintbrush and the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop. I've come to find out after now coloring Dawn of the Black Axe work for Gabriel Rodriguez, Kevin Eastman, and Walter Simonson, that I have to approach the tools and color dynamics differently with each. I found that less of my normal rendering was needed on Walt's inks and just more soft color transitions and then slight hue/saturation/value changes on any little area formed by his ink lines (almost like stained glass panels)

Final Cover:

Here again is the final cover with that logo modified so Walt's Black Axe weaves through like the original.

This version will be available at SDCC exclusively (though if there are extras at the end of the event, I may have some for my online store)

Bardrick & Siobhan Paintings

Last week I posted about a Saxon watercolor piece I donated for Parkinson's Research, but if you missed out, I did two more Mouse Guard watercolors I'll be taking with me to SDCC this month for sale (and if they don't sell there, will be in my online store soon after).

These 9" x 12" paintings are inspired by characters from Dawn of the Black Axe, the latest Mouse Guard comic mini series written and colored by me, with art by Gabriel Rodriguez.

Below is a bit of behind the scenes process (I wish I had been better about photographing steps along the way, but must have forgotten) and clearer images of the final pieces.

The Bardrick piece started with a pencil drawing (based on a panel of Gabe's from issue 2). That drawing was then taped to the matboard the final painting would be on with graphite transfer paper sandwiched in between. By tracing over the original pencils with a pen (as seen here), the lines transfer over to the matboard. 

The final painting of Brarick, first mouse to wield the Black Axe with brown color pencil to tighten in the linework.

Siobhan, the Matriarch of the story was the other painting's subject. I did a very quick pencil portrait of her that had several proportion errors, so I just scanned that sketch and started cutting and resizing bit until it felt right. I then did some digital drawing and color blocking to plan a dramatic uplight. The same transfer process was used on a printout of this to get the image onto the matboard.

Here is the final painting of Siobhan, Matriarch & Healer from Dawn of the Black Axe. I really struggled with the watercolor on this matboard. I usually use watercolor paper or illustration board for painting on, but I had some scraps of matboard and though 'what the hell--I've painted on matboard before'...but the board soaked up the water too quickly and just the wetness made every brush stroke look dark like when you get a tee-shirt wet. Because of that I never really achieved the dramatic color and uplighting I was hoping for.

Saxon Watercolor for Parkinson's Research

Last weekend at Heroes Con there is a charity auction organized by Team Cul de Sac to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. As many of you know, my mother struggled with Parkinson's from 1996 until her death in 2020, so the cause is important to me. The evening is a drink & draw with drink sales as well as bidding on pieces drawn (usually on blank coasters) by amateurs and professionals alike. It's a great night for a great cause.

To help generate a more in donations, I did a larger watercolor painting of Saxon from Mouse Guard for the bidding.

The piece started with a pencil drawing that I scanned and digitally blocked in color for reference.

Then I transferred the drawing using graphite paper and watercolored the 11" x 14" piece

The painting raised $1,300  and the night overall brought in $17,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Thanks to Chris Sparks for all he does to get comic creators (especially those of us like Katie Cook & Mark Buckingham who've been impacted by a family member with Parkinson's) involved in raising money for research on a great cause.