Developing a cover

Prelim sketches, slightly different.

A loose quick sketch allows you to capture the energy of a piece without giving it too much thought.  The design here (I can't mention the character buy you might be able to figure it out) is punching several people through a wall.  This is sketched digitally with EACH character on a different layer so that I can reposition them before deciding on the final.

With this third sketch I decided to have the larger character in the back of the group still ready for a fight.  With the first two takes he's just getting a beating like everyone else, by having him still engaged we get a bigger sense of menace.

Rear character is in to the fight.

After that I figure out the light source-- I want to have this heavily lit from below to give us a sense of the figures falling out of a tall window over a busy city street.  So the light would be coming from the ground giving us a strong sense of shadow on the upper sides of the characters.

From here, I print the 10x15 sketch out and then transfer it to bristol board in pencil using my light box.  If you don't have a commercially bought light box you can make one pretty simply if you happen to have a glass top table (available cheap at both Building 19 and the like and on Craigslist).