Hello there; time for another process post on the auld Dec-blog... aw man, i totally should have called this 'The Dec-Blog'. Ah well.
I was handing in cover ideas to my editor at BOOM! Studios, one of which being the above. Issue 12 called for a 'Someone WILL die' vibe, so i thought this would be the perfect chance to go with this (very rough) idea. I wanted to do a really bold, graphic, stylized cover... actually, i've been trying that approach with all the covers so far, but this was me trying to be a little braver in approach.
Here's the fully inked piece. from the layout you can tell i was planning on changing the black line art to red, but once i tried, it just didn't work. It didn't 'pop' like i wanted it do. If anything, it looked too flat. So with a bold composition, i tried a bold colour scheme....
I showed it to a couple of the Micks for some feedback. It was suggested i colour the arm in the foreground with solid colour but i was pretty keen on going in this direction...
...except my editor wasn't as keen. He asked if i could colour it 'more traditionally,' which is fair enough. So, i had to try do that, yet keep it bold, otherwise what was the point of doing it in the first place? So, to keep it consistent with the previous covers (ie a black/white/grey/red colour scheme), i added greytone to Selena's arm, and coloured the blood in bold red...
And here we have it; the final cover. I do still prefer the original colour version, but i do think this version totally works. I saw the cover online today, and was a bit surprised to see the 28 Days Later logo so big on the cover. Then again, it was a bold composition, and the logo looks big and bold, so as a cover, i think it really stands out. You can see it here.
So that is my heroic story. I got to say 'bold' a lot. Hope ye like the cover. I really do; to editorial's credit, i didn't think a cover this minimalistic would get approved; you can tell from a lot of comic covers that some editors thing you should fill a cover with lots of characters and lots of colour. Here i got to push my 'less is more' cover approach. That may be why this is my favourite of covers i've done so far.
Dec.
6 comments:
Awesome man- thanks for sharing that. Great image- I like your original coloured version better, but the more traditional one is excellent as well.
I like both of the finished versions Dec. I have to say, of the two I prefere the actual printed version.. it bears a closer resemblance to your initial sketch.... but the one you like, has a really pleasing quality.. it reminds me of DC Thompson war comics of the 1970's. probably the large screen red dots combined with black linework that does it.....
Thanks for sharing another process post, Dec. Love those. Both of the covers are excellent. I guess I see where the editor was coming from, but I think either cover would have worked brilliantly. The cover definitely does stand out.
Thanks a lot guys, sound for the comments.
Again; i prefer the original version mainly because i got some unexpexcted results that i liked. I'm quite fond of the final version as it retained what i was originally going for. As you said Staz, it looks more like the original sketch, so it probably is the better version, i'm just still fond of the first, is all.
Glad ye all like it though :)
I read that issue 12 is the last of the year? So is 28 days later going to start up again some time later?
Totally works! I'd say the logo looks a little big maybe.Great to see the grind behind the cover.:)
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