Gnomevember 2017 Re-Visit...

November of last year I participated in 'GNOMEVEMBER'. Not only had I never heard about it before I saw Becky Cloonan tweeting in late October of her plans to participate, but I'd never done a one-a-day for a month event like "INKTOBER' or 'DRAWTOBER'. So it was a challenge for-sure! It was also at a time when I was under a lot of personal stress and I found that making the space each day to try and get one Gnome drawn helped a lot. Sometimes I fell behind, sometimes I drew elaborate scenes or larger pieces, other times I drew something simple or small to help not bog me down and get back to the pressures of the day.

Over the last year I've been coloring my Gnomevember pieces for fun--and with the idea that we may do some type of prints/products with them (which still may happen--stay tuned). But for now, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I wanted to share these with you not just to say I'm thankful for the experience I had drawing and coloring these wee folk--but that I'm more thankful for my fans who enjoyed and supported me through their creation and the difficult times they were created in.

I've opened a little Popup Shop for my #GNOMEVEMBER pieces over on Society6 for the holidays! Prints, Coasters, Stationary Cards, Totes, Travel Mugs & More: https://society6.com/davidpetersen

A Smoking Gnome.

A Garden Gnome.

A Woodcutter Gnome.

A Cooking Gnome.

A Knight Gnome.

A Young (for a Gnome) Artist Gnome

named David.

A Harvesting Gnome on the Run.

Playing the Lute.

A Lantern Gnome.

Elder Gnome with Death's Head Moth.

Siberian Gnome.

A sprig of pine and a spot of tea.

Oaken Staffed Gnome.

Hiding in the Berries.

Royal Gnomes.

Starting a Window.

Engagement.

 A Gnome & Her Marionette

The End.

Not all of my GNOMEVMEBER pieces are colored, if you want a look at all of last year's Gnomes:

https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2017/12/gnomevember-2017.html

Mouse Guard Creator Commentary: Winter #1

I've made a Creator Commentary video for the first issue/chapter of Mouse Guard Winter 1152!  Please feel free to follow along in your copy of the story in either issue form of from the hardcover as I talk about the behind the scenes details, art notes, and my head-space as I go page by page and panel by panel. Enjoy!

Direct link to video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/F_yrycxio5w

Beneath the Dark Crystal Variant Cover #5

Here is my fifth variant cover for Archaia's Beneath the Dark Crystal series!

To view my past Dark Crystal covers click here.


This cover features UrYod the Mystic Numerologist and skekShod the Skeksis Treasurer. Like my other covers they are the counterparts to each other and paired together facing opposite each other. To the left you can see the finished artwork for the cover, but below I'll walk through the steps to get there.



I started creating the layout by drawing the Skeksis and Mystic each on separate sheets of copy paper.  Henson and Archaia provided me with a great set of reference photos of the puppets and their costumes from the original production that help when trying to decipher detail upon detail of a the character's garments, props, or anatomy. I tried to get these two to act a bit more, suing their hands to each hold items significant to them (the Skeksis holds a dagger and a purse, the mystic: a rope-abacus stone). I scanned the drawings into Photoshop and was able to tint, resize, and manipulate them into a layout I liked. The background circle design is based on a Brian Froud painting from the book "The World of the Dark Crystal", but simplified and drawn in my line.

Once I got the approval from Archaia and Henson for the layout, I printed it out and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my light pad (I use a a3 sized Huion) I can see through the surface of the bristol to the printout below and ink using it as a guide. I inked this with Copic Multiliners, specifically the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs.

My main focus when inking these Dark Crystal characters is to get the textures right. To give them a look of being physical things with wear and tear, with wrinkles and grime. It's important that the parts of each character's costume also reads as layered and detailed and textured as the real puppets were...though I'm certainly having to interpret color and tone and texture into some type of little line styles.


The inks were approved, and I scanned the original artwork into Photoshop to start the coloring process. This step, known as 'flatting' is where flat colors are added to establish the various color areas. Mapping out what parts are what colors. While I have some reference to start with, I'm still eyeballing these colors and making a lot of decisions on my own.

At this stage I also added the color hold (an area where I want the inks to be a color other than black) on the circle pattern behind the characters.





The last step is to render the colors using the dodge and burn tools. I use a textured brush that comes stock with Photoshop when I'm doing this to help emulate the look of something a little more natural and less airbrush-slick.

I also added in a Froud-ian design (one that I inked back when I was inking the cover itself) as a ghostly overly over the entire piece.

The final order cut off (for your local comic book store to order one for you) is Nov. 19th. The issue is in stores and on-sale December 12th!

5 down...7 to go....


2019 Appearances TBA

TMNT Macro Series Raphael Cover Process

My final TMNT Macro Series cover for IDW is Raphael. This marks my 17th Turtles cover for IDW, and it has been a pleasure to do them all. My first TMNT cover was of Raphael, so to end this round with him feels a bit full-circle.

To see my past TMNT covers click here.

The finished art for the Raphael cover is on the left, but below I'll walk through the steps to create this cover piece.



Layouts/Pencils:
As with the other Macro Series covers, editor Bobby Curnow provided me an outline of the events of the issue, but also gave me free reign to do something 'classic'. Part of the Raph story takes place in Central Park. And since the other 3 covers in this series have their locations as a main element in the composition, picking the right Central Park monument was key. I toyed with The Dairy, The Carousel, Belvedere Castle, and Columbus Circle monument...but opted for the juxtaposition of the Angel of the Waters atop the Bethesda Fountain.

Raph was drawn on copy paper (2 sheets, I redrew one arm and his sai) and the Angel of the Waters was drawn from a reference photo. All of these drawings were scanned into photoshop composited (with some digital pigeons, & ninja stars along with some stock photo trees) and then quickly painted to help me 'see' the final composition and to make it easier for the editor and Nickelodeon understand what I was doing.

Inks:
I printed out the above layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my light pad, I was able to see through the bristol surface to the printout, and I used that as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner pens...mostly the 0.7 nib.

Translating the texture of the shading on the statue was the tough part. Knowing how far to go. I like the soft nature of my pencil version more than the inked one...but sometimes, that happens.



Color Flats:
Once the inks were finished I scanned the original artwork to start the coloring process. This step is called 'flatting' where you digitally paint in the colors (could be the final palate, could be made up colors) to establish what areas are different colors from one another. Raph's skin is different from his front shell, and that's different from the sky, or the pigeons, or the statue, or his pads or arm wraps.

In this step I also added color holds (areas I wanted the ink work to be a color and not black) to the moon's outline, the stars, and the trees.


Color:
The final step was to render all the color. I did this step live over on my Twitch channel. I do all of the highlighting, shading and texture using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop and a stock brush. 

I did add some more color holds on Raph's cuts and also some glowy bits on the edges of the statue & pigeons in front of the moon.

...oh...and I just found out, I'm doing another cover for this series...the trade!


2019 Appearances TBA

Beneath the Dark Crystal Variant Cover #4

I have been hired by Archaia to do a run of 12 variant covers for the Dark Crystal comic series: Beneath the Dark Crystal. This is my fourth cover of the series where I feature a pair of the yin and yang Mystics & Skeksis.

To see my previous Dark Crystal covers click here.

To the left you can see the finished cover art of UrTih the Mystic Alchemist and skekTek the Skeksis Scientist. Below I'll go step-by-step through the process of creating the piece.



I started with pencil drawings on copy paper. I like using copy paper to draw composition elements because I'm not precious about it...if I don't like the way a drawing is turning out, I don't have to erase, or try to salvage it if I don't want to, I can ball it, bin it and start again. It also helps that I draw the characters separately. For the figures, I do utilize a lot of turn-around reference photos Henson provided me of the Skeksis and Mystics. This is an invaluable resource since the puppets are detail on top of details. For the background pattern and the celestial design, I directly referenced Brian Froud artwork from the book "The World of the Dark Crystal".

With drawings of the characters and background & design, I scanned those in and started arranging and re-sizing them in Photoshop. Because each drawing is separate from the others, it makes this process easier. I tint them different colors to also help me visualize the forms and figure out where the lines from one thing end and the next begin.

I've been alternating which direction the figures faced on each cover, so I placed skekTek on a cover where he'd face the right so I could show off his bionic eye and arm. In studying his photos, I think I figured out that part of his costume are Skeksis carapace and a stretched Landstrider hide.


Once my Archaia editor Cam and Henson approved the layout, I was able to start inking the final artwork. I printed out the above layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol.

On my light pad I can see through the bristol's surface to the printout and use it like a pencil guide as I ink. When it comes to the ink, I use Copic Multiliners. Most of this was done with the 0.7 nib, though lots of facial details were done using a 0.3.

Texture and line quality is always my focus when I'm inking. Trying to get the various surfaces to read differently, but also leaving room for color to do some of that work.

The first step in the coloring process is to add in all flat colors...no rendering or texture. This is to help establish what areas are the same or different colors. Making sure the Skeksis skin is a different color than the Mystic's, or that the different parts of their costuming are the appropriate colors. It's like coloring within the lines as a professional.

In this step I also establish the color hold on the background pattern.





The final step is to render the color by adding light, shadow, and texture to the figures. I do all of that work in Photoshop with the dodge and burn tools using a textured brush.

4 down 8 to go....



2019 Appearances TBA

Mouse Guard: The Tale of the Wild Wolf reading video

The 2017 Mouse Guard Free Comic Book Day story is one of my favorites, and I realized that unless you happened to pick up a copy of it on that day, or heard me do one of two live readings of it, you may have never read 'The Tale of the Wild Wolf'

So, I have done a reading of it for you all to enjoy and put it on YouTube for a limited time.

Enjoy the video below!

Direct Link to video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lqZ3ipLmG4c

2019 Schedule TBD

Legends of the Guard Homages part 2

As a theme for my next sketchbook (which was going to debut at NYCC...but will have to wait until later this year or early next)  I had the idea of doing Mouse Guard pieces based on specific characters & stories from the guest contributors in Legends of the Guard. (I did a series of these already and shared them in a previous blogpost). For those who don't know, Legends is a spinoff anthology series where guest artists write and illustrate tall tales, fables, and folklore set in the Mouse Guard world. The 3 volumes of Legends are now available in a nice boxed set.


Below I'll show a bit of the original artist's tale that I used as reference, and the inks and colors for my homage:

The Battle of the Hawk's Mouse & The Fox's Mouse:

by Jeremy Bastian

In Volume 1, Jeremy told a story about mice being the servants to larger beasts, doing their bidding as well as fighting their battles for them. The Hawk's Mouse and the Fox's mouse enter into a combat  for their masters, but are halted by the Fox Mouse's son & the Hawks Mouse's wife. Legend holds them as the first two Guardmice and the wife the Guard's first Matriarch.

I've always LOVED this Legend, and I like it better than some of the origins of the Guard in the RPG. I've tried to integrate these mice into Mouse Guard lore anyhow...Faulknir & Silfano (Hawk's Mouse & Fox's Mouse) have been featured on bookplates, and they along with Sefatus (Silfano's son) were in the story: "Service to Seyan" and Feruin (Faulknir's wife) is imortalized in stained glass in the Matriarch's chamber in The Black Axe. So, for my version of this Legend, I wanted to pay homage to the battle between them were they learn the lesson "Mouse must not kill mouse".

The Critic:

by Guy Davis

Guy Davis did a wordless story (using pictograms in a few cases) in Volume 1, where a mouse seeing the primitive painting of an owl, gets delusions of grandeur thinking if he says something like the abstracted image he'd become a great mouse. However, when he finds a next of owls, it's a pure horror show...bones everywhere and the discovery that spooky owls are much bigger and more terrifying than the scale-less simple painting.

I wanted to show the moment of dawning realization where the mouse has seen the bones, but not the owls haunting him from behind. As an extra nod to the story (so the reference to it is clearer) I added in the pictogram speech of the owl painting.

The Thief, The Star-Gazer, The Hunter, & The Tailor:

by Cory Godbey

In Volume 2, Cory told a story of four brothers who each learn a specific trade: thieving, star-gazing, hunting, and sewing. When they are reunited they are called to aid a mouse king whose daughter has been taken by a beast and they each must use their specific skills to rescue her toegther. Because I like Cory's dragons, I bent the Mouse Guard rules for non-regional animal species (or in this case, imaginary.

For my portrait of the brothers, I wanted to include that dragon, but to bring it back into some more familiar Mouse Guard territory, I referenced the visual of a snake eating its own tail, but now with a dragon head.

The Ballad of Nettledown:

by Nate Pride

Nate's story from Volume 1 is only three pages (a restriction I had to impose on him because of a miscommunication from the other contributors in that issue) but it doesn't feel small. It tells the story of a mouse who saves the town of Nettledown from a flood by drinking the all water before it reached the village. I've referenced this tale twice in Mouse Guard, Doren can be seen in the feast in Seyan in "Service to Seyan" and the town of Nettledown works into some past Black Axe lore in "The Axe Trio".

It was hard to pick a moment in this story to draw, and I worried no one could draw Doren better as a big sloshy impossibly overfilled mouse, but I did my best while including some of the townsfolk I was drawn to.

Love of the Sea:

by Christian Slade

In Volume 2, Christian did a story about a young pirate-y mouse who rescues a female mer-mouse from a sea creature. They emotionally connect before she swims away. We watch the Pirate mouse age and return to the sea edge as an old fur..he sheds a tear and she reappears and they sit on a rock and watch the moon.

I tried to keep the muted palate and hatched linework feel of Christian's pages, and simply just redrew one of his panels (adding in the moon from the last page of the story) in my own style.

Back and Forth:

by Jackson Sze

Jackson had never drawn a comic story before his Legends tale. He's an amazing concept painter for the Marvel movies, but to make up a narrative and tell it panel by panel was something new for him. I loved the concept paintings he'd done of exotic locations in his sketchbooks, so I suggested a travelogue type story, with a Guardmouse escorting a cartographer around noting things of interest/danger at each one. He added a nice tone of the Guardmouse feeling it was somehow beneath him to 'babysit' a mouse to write notes and draw maps, but in time he's won over by the adventure and usefulness of it.

For my version, I just tried my best to reinterpret Bridgeporte in my inked illustrative style to see how it would look. I included the two mice in the foreground paddling in their approach.

The Tale of Abdiel's Heart:

by Ramon K. Perez

Jackson Ramon's tale is a circular narrative in some ways. A mouse finds a scrap of paper noting a treasure as well as the perilous obstacles standing in the way (Think Dr. Henry Jones Sr.'s Grail Diary on one sheet). The mouse navigates and overcomes the dangers to find the bones of a mouse holding a heart-shaped jewel...as the would-be thief obtains the prize, a last trap reveals itself as a blood-red crow...and the paper blows away and lands at the feet of another mouse

The skeleton holding the jewel is what I most wanted to draw for my version. And it only seemed logical to include the mouse thief as well as the crow.

The Watcher's Stone:

by Ryan Lang

Ryan Lang's Legends story is one of the most shared and was and important story in terms of landing some of the pieces to get the Mouse Guard movie deal in place. Ryan has worked in animation for years, but I think this was his first published sequential comic work. Beautifully painted, The Watcher's Stone is about a mouse who stands sentry over a mink's lair to keep her town safe. But she doesn't use brute strength or her sword to keep the mink at bay, she holds it prisoner by using what it fears the most against it. And the Legend goes that she stood there so long, she eventually turned to stone, leaving an eternal landmark at the spot.

It was hard not to just recreate  the last panel and reveal of Ryan's story for my homage. I tried to play up the ink textures and line to make sure it was my own. I also had the mouse's ears exposed, as I can never seem to pull off the mouse hood with the ears tucked inside without it looking wrong.

2019 Appearance Schedule TBD

Creator Commentary: Legends of the Guard: POTENTIAL

I've made a Creator Commentary video for the short story from Legends of the Guard Vol. 1: POTENTIAL. Joining me on the video are the creators of that story, writer Alex Kain, and artist Sean Rubin. Watch the video below as we go page by page and panel by panel with behind the scenes info, inspirations, art & story notes, and reference. Enjoy!

Direct YouTube link: https://youtu.be/dwkEdwLK92k


2018 Appearances:

New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

TMNT Macro Series Leonardo Cover Process

This is my third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Macro series cover for IDW, and it features Leonardo. Originally the order of the turtles' macro series was different, and Leo was last, but a scheduling switch at the publisher gets Leo ahead of Raph.

You can see my previous TMNT covers here.

To the left is the finished art for the cover, and below in this blogpost, I'll go through the various steps to create the final piece.




Layout/Pencils:
The first step was to come up with what the cover was going to be about. In the issue, Leo does have a battle in the woods, and though my version isn't as it happens in the issue, it felt like a way to explore Leo in a more aggressive posture while also paying homage to some old Eastman & Laird drawn story notes.

I drew Leo on a sheet of copy paper (or actually a few that I cobbled together digitally taking the parts I liked from different sheets) in a birch tree forest. He's wearing the hooded garment he wears in issue #11 of the original Mirage TMNT series. I also opted to have him wounded, paying homage to the moment in that same Mirage Run when Leo is almost killed by the foot clan (in the 1990 movie, it's Raph instead of Leo...an odd coincidence considering the issue order swap here)

The color, snow and breath were digitally done to help me see the piece as a layout, but also for my editor Bobby as well as the license holders, Nickelodeon so everyone understood what the final art was going to resemble.

Inks:
With the layout approved, I started inking the cover. I printed out the above digital composite layout and taped that to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my lightpad I'm able to see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use as a pencils guide as I ink. For pens I used Copic Multiliners (my pens of choice). Here I used mostly a 0.7 other than a few details where I went down to a 0.3 nib.

Texture and hatching is very important to me, and I focused it here on the gear Leo is wearing as well as all those birch trees.


Color Flats:
Once the inks were approved I could start on the coloring process. The first step of that is to 'flat' the piece by adding flat colors to establish the color areas...that Leo's hood is a different color than his bandanna, or his forearm wraps, or the sky, etc. I happened to use colors very close to my final piece, but I could have used any colors at this stage, purple skin, orange bandana, navy sky...it's just all about coloring within the lines so that it's easy to re-isolate those areas again when rendering.

In this step I also defined all the color holds, areas I wanted the inkwork to be a color other than black: The snow & the blood.



Colors:
The final step is to do all of that rendering. Adding light and shadow and texture. I do this with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop and a stock brush.

For the falling snow I pulled out my rarely used Wacom tablet to paint in some digital snow. In Mouse Guard I've always inked dots on a separate sheet of paper, but I find that creates something a bit too graphic and hard edged. Painting digitally, I was also able to add in the breath coming out of Leo's mouth.




2018 Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

Beneath the Dark Crystal Variant Cover #3

This is my third variant cover for the new Dark Crystal series from Archaia titled "Beneath the Dark Crystal".

You can view my past two covers here.

This cover features UrIm the healer (mystic) and skekUng the Garthim Master (Skeksis). To the left you can see the finished cover art and below I go step by step to show how I created the piece.





I started with pencil drawings on copy paper. I am fortunate enough to have several folders of reference photos from various angles of the Mystics and Skeksis from Henson. Those are invaluable as I'm drawing the figures and trying to decipher details of their clothing and anatomy.

For the background image as well as the overlayed ghostly design, I am using existing Brian Froud imagery from the Art Of The Dark Crystal book and then recreating it in my linework.



I scan each piece of paper to create the layout to submit for approval. Having the drawings all scanned separately allows me to color tint each figure and then independently move them around until I like the placement of the characters in relationship to the background and the pattern overlay.

The Garthim Master's head needed a little adjustment too. So in this step I was able to cut it and rotate it to where it looked better. Speaking of the Garthim Master, I think not only is most of his armor made of Garthim carapace, but that the 'webbing' on his back is actually a female Gelfling's wing fragment.




Once the above layout was approved I was able to ink the piece. I printed out the layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my lightpad, I can see through the surface of the bristol and use the printout as a pencil guide to ink from. For pens I prefer to use Copic Multiliners. I mostly use the 0.7 nib, but there were certainly spots on their faces where I used a smaller 0.3 nib.

As the Dark Crystal characters demand, so much of the work is in the inking of textures. Some of their costume fabrics don't literally translate to linework, so I have to create patterns and texture to imply the same feel from the puppets to the drawing.

I also inked the overlay pattern on a separate sheet of Strathmore bristol. While the linework here is black, I used photoshop tricks and techniques to make it lighter and ghostly in the final art.



With the inks completed I scanned in the original and started flatting the color in Photoshop. Flatting is the process of establishing color areas: that the Skeksis skin is a different color than the background or than the armor, or the mystic's hair or sleeves. It's basically digital professional coloring within the lines.

In this step I also established all the color holds, the areas I didn't want the linework to be black, but instead a color: The background design and the Mystic's sleeve pattern




The last step was to render all the color and to add color texture. I do all of that in Photoshop using the Dodge and Burn tools with a stock textured brush.

So, that's 3 down and 9 more to go!!!


2018 Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

Mouse Guard Architectural Model: Shorestone Exterior

The exterior model of Shorestone was one that I made when drawing the last issue of Black Axe.

It's made of cardboard, chipboard, basswood, paper, and aluminum foil.

In the video below, I talk about building and using the model to show the height of Mouse Architectural pride.

Direct YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/5h6Oi4WZH3Y

2018 Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7