KOTOR #9 subliminal

Here's page 16 from issue #9-- our sparring scene between Lucien and the other future Masters. It was very cool for us to show Lucien asserting his physical dominance over the others-- to show every one that he is the leader of this group. Even though he may lack the "vision" of the other four, he is the Alpha of the group. I feel that the other Masters are actually a little scared of Lucien-- that although he keeps his

emotions deep inside and has a calm demeanor, he can snap in an instant and rip your head off.

The architecture in this issue ( buildings in the Draay estate ) is heavily influenced by Moorish buildings in Spain-- I believe it was called the Palace at the Alhambra. The walls are extremely elaborate and decorative and while I was working on panel 4, I thought it was a cool spot to put in the names of the art team-- Atiyeh and Ching. It's just a little fun thing to throw in to make the day a little more interesting. At least it's interesting to me.



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KotOR cover #13, final

I've already posted the finished pencils for the cover a couple weeks back so no need to show that again. Here's the finished colors for the piece-- another outstanding job by Mike Atiyeh! To be honest, I think I drove Mike a little crazy with all my requests for changes on this piece. In the end I realized he didn't need to change a single thing and that all of it looks outstanding. That just shows how neurotic and obsessive we can be on our work-- waaaaaay more critical than the readers or "critics."


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KotOR #13 cover, part 3

The next step is laying a sheet of tracing paper on top and doing a more refined version of the rough (the grey rectangles at the four corners are pieces of tape and are now grey because I converted the scan to gresycale to keep the file sizes small). I'm trying to choose single lines here to define the forms, something I can clean up a little more later but it looks strong enough so that you can see what's going on.

Notice the large circular shape behind Jarael's and Zayne's head? It looked okay on the rough but as you see in the final image, it was replaced with more pipes and engine parts. Sometimes, it just doesn't look right on the completed piece so it needs to be changed.


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KotOR #13 cover, part 2

After the initial thumbnail is approved, I next transfer it to a full size 11 x17 sheet of art board.

It's pretty rough and at this stage there is a lot that only I will be able to see what's going on. It's quite a mess isn't it? Well, the idea here is to throw down lines quickly, act instinctively and hopefully some good stuff will come out of it.

I've started to rough in some background elements here that aren't in the actual thumbnail. I knew I wanted to add something but wasn't quite sure until I got to this stage. I keep thinking of it as montage and close-up of engine parts from their ship, the Last Resort.



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KotOR cover #13, part 1

Okay, I probably should have started with this image earlier on instead of showing the finished version of it but this can still be fun.

This is my initial thumbnail for the cover (done at about 4 x 6 inches or so). It's getting a bit tricky to choose what we want to reveal on each cover. Should we display one of the major scenes of the issue? If so, how much should we show? Should we just show some iconic style image of our heroes? It's always a dilemma and I actually don't have a real answer for it. Sometimes, it's just scheduling that dictates it.

We knew we wanted to reveal the HK series droid on the cover as well as some action scenes involving both Zayne and Jarael so I came up with this.



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sketchbook doodles

I finsihed an issue of KOTOR the other night-- usually I am so drained after an issue that I crash and don't draw anything for at least 2 days. However this time around, I forced myself to sit at the drawing table and just screw around in my sketchbook. I had the TV on and LOST was playing ( I usually only listen to though) so it was relaxing... sort of.

This is what I came up with. I've always really liked the Silver Surfer so I thought I'd give him a shot, this might be the first time I've ever drawn him-- I might have to transfer this to a full size art board and do a finished version of it.

And again, I have doodled the Thing, my favorite member of the Fantastic Four. He's just so fun to draw, you can't really mess up with him. If you make any part of him too small (like I originally did on his left shoulder) you just add more rocks to it to even it out.


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Busy as heck

I've been in deadline hell the last couple of weeks so I haven't been putting anything up on the Blog. My eyes are strained and my hand is sore but hey at least I get to draw for a living:)

The solicitations just came out for issue #13 of KotOR so I thought I'd put up the cover pencils for it. It has Jarael, Zayne, and uhumm, some reddish looking droid thing which may or may not be HK-47...we'll have to wait and see.

I'll be back soon.


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