EatSleepDraw

kate-elizabeth:

About to get real geeky up in here. (EatSleepDraw Magazine #002: How the cover was created.)

A little before the first issue of ESD Mag dropped, I sent the editors an email, begging them to replace one of the images I’d just submitted to the website (last minute edits and such).  I got a quick response from Lee, EatSleepDraw! Superhero, saying, “I was literally just looking at your submission.  Wanna do the cover for our second issue?”

Um.  YES.

ESD has sent hundreds of visitors over to my website.  I probably owe my entire list of followers to them.  I was more than happy to oblige.  So after a few months of work, I’m finally going to see some of my art in print, and I am really excited (and grateful!) for it.

I don’t usually talk about my process much, other than posting screencaps of WIPs.  The way I work is generally not scientific— rough sketches, minimal planning. I just do what pleases my eye as I work.

However, this was such a big project, I wanted to give you guys a peek at how it was created.  I’m not great at explaining things, and this is the most I’ve ever talked about my art, so bear with me here.

01: Laying out the flats.  This was the original concept for the cover, which I worked with for quite awhile before scrapping.  I’ll maybe do something with the sketches at another time, but I’ll be honest… I have no idea what the fuck I was thinking with this one.  Dancing?  Masks?  Foxes?  What?

02: Coloring in the birch trees.  Fact: I’d been looking to do a winter/tree scene since watching “The Breaking Point” episode of Band of Brothers earlier this year (the one where they’re in Foy).  I realize that’s kind of morbid, but it’s a really well shot episode.  The scenery was such a huge part of the story, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.  Thus, tall trees on a snowy scene.

03: I usually work with really bright or saturated colors.  For this, I wanted to go in a different direction.  Plus, I knew the magazine was coming out in December, so I went for a lighter palette.  I went through a lot of color options for the sky but this worked best, and was truer to my original concept.

04: Aaaaand here’s where all progress just ground to a halt.  The cover would sit just like this for months (sorry, Lee).  I kept psyching myself out.  Despite having a respectable amount of followers (I think?), I pretty much post things with the assumption that I’m the only one who’s going to see it.  I knew a lot of people would be seeing this magazine cover, however… and you can make out some of the (dozens of) rejected thumbnails in the background.

I don’t want to talk about how many sketchbook pages I turned out in these couple of months.  I drew more than I have ever drawn before.  And used a lot of paper.  The trees, they weep.  (On the bright side, I now have lots of back sketches to work from if I’m ever feeling uninspired.)

05: Getting down to the wire now.  I returned to this picture in October, and flipped back through pages of drawings until I found these.  I have no idea when I drew them.  I rarely date anything in my books.  After putting them away for awhile, I could finally look at my sketches objectively, and decided there was enough here to actually create something that I wouldn’t hate.

Once I had a concept that I could work with— and one that I was actually excited about— the rest of the piece came together really quickly.  I finished both characters over the course of two days.

06: A close-up of the girl’s face.  I don’t usually create a palette before I work, so I had to play with her eye color quite a bit before I found something I liked.  I already knew I wanted that punch of yellow for her robe, and the green eyes just pulled it all together for me.

07: Birds are really good at giving a blank stare.  I had sketched out a few more details for the owl’s face but I liked the white shapes so much, I decided to keep it simple so they’d stand out.  Sometimes the hardest thing about drawing is knowing when you’ve done enough.

08: And, finally, my favorite view of the whole picture.  This is really art-nerdy (too late?), but I’m really proud of the shapes I cut out here, and the way they fit together.  I usually paint first and cut down to the shape I need (like treating paper, then using a knife to cut out for collages).  There’s a little spark of neon yellow under his claws to make them stand out more.

Added snow, and took out the mountains to minimize the clutter.  And there you have it.

Thanks again to Lee for asking me to do this.  I know I probably had him sweating there for a couple months, but this is really my favorite thing that I’ve ever drawn.  I hope it was worth the wait.  Despite the agonizing months where I couldn’t decide on a theme, it was actually a really fun project to work on, start to finish.

Now.

The magazine drops later today, and you’d better buy one.