ANATOMY OF A FISHFLIES COVER

From Sketch to Painted Image...

I finished painting the cover to FISHFLIES #6 this morning and thought I’d share some process images of the various stages of its creation…

First my initial doodle/sketch for the cover…

Then I translate the sketch onto layout paper in red animation pencil, and do my tight pencils over that. Notice I isolated Franny off to the side to make sure I got a version of her that I was happy with.

Then I ink. I put the pencils under water-colour paper and ink over a lightbox using crow quill pens and brushes.

The final inks…

Then I start to water-colour paint right over my inks…laying down my initial color washes and flesh tones as the undertones of colour…

And the final painted piece…

Then I scan this and play with the contrast and darken the blacks to get the final image.

And as a bonus, here is guest artist Shawn Kuruneru’s variant cover for Issue #6!

Issue #4 will be out this week, January 10!

-Jeff