Tuesday, September 27, 2016

2016 Mouse Guard Sketchbook

The 2016 Sketchbook is finally coming out! Like previous years, this is a 24 page, full-color, sketchbook collection of pieces I drew and colored within the last year.  Limited to 500 copies, signed and numbered, it will debut at New York Comic Con (I'll be in Artist Alley: J1)

But...I have it available in my online store already as a pre-order (they will be shipped out when I return home from NYC)
http://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/2016-mouse-guard-sketchbook

Below you can see a few sample pages from this year's book:


Top L-R: Morello the patron mouse of Printmaking ~ Kenzie, Saxon, & Lieam on a Fall patrol ~ a fierce band of Guardmice. Bottom L-R: Guardmice fanning a peacock with collected feathers ~ The 5th Black Axe ~ Sadie in a leaf boat.


I didn't take as many inked commissions in the last year as I have in the past, and because of that, putting together a sketchbook took longer than past years as well. I filled the book mostly with personal pieces I drew for myself or for fun (and a few of those originals will be for sale in my portfolio at NYCC and in my online store afterwards if they are unsold). And with my schedule probably becoming more busy because of Weasel War, My Mom's health, and the Mouse Guard film, I don't know if 2017 will have a sketchbook...


2016 Appearances:
New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9
2017 Dates coming soon...

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Legends of the Guard: The Timber Mice Video

The Timber Mice is a story in Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Volume 2. The melody was written by Cliff Monear, the lyrics were mine, and the story was illustrated by Justin Gerard. Vocalist, French Horn player, and Mouse Guard fan Kyra Sims recruited accordion player Jordan Shapiro and together they recored a beautiful rendition of 'The Timber Mice' for fans.

Below you can watch a video of the illustrations set against the performance:



For a past blogpost interview with Justin Gerard about his Legends of the Guard work:


To Download a FREE MP3 of The Timber Mice:
http://www.mouseguard.net/downloads/music/



You can order the Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Volumes 1-3 Box Set
from Your local comic or book shop and Amazon.com

2016 Appearances:
New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9
2017 Dates coming soon...

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Wind In the Willows: Badger's Entry Illustration Process

Later this year, IDW will be releasing my illustrated edition of the Kenneth Grahame classic Wind in the Willows. The book will be Grahame's original text, with over 70 illustrations by me.

For this week's blogpost, I'm going to share the process of one of the b&w illustrations from Chapter 4: Mr. Badger:

"The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down-at-heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably on his way to bed when their summons sounded."

It was very hard to narrow down the moments in the book to choose to illustrate. At the start of chapter 4, The character of Badger is revealed to not only the reader, but also to the character Mole.

The illustration depicts Rat & Mole tumbling in out of the snow of the Wild Wood and into Badger's front entry way. I drew the characters separately on pieces of copy paper so that I could compose the image together and make adjustments to all of them individually.


Once the sketches were scanned, I started assembling a final composition. I tinted each character so I could easily see them amongst each other as well as the digitally drawn in background.
I didn't draw much of a background in my sketches, and instead of using another sheet of copy paper, I broke out my rarely used wacom tablet to draw in Badger's entry way.


The digitally composited sketch was then printed out at-size (about 11" x 7") and then taped to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore Bristol. On a light box I was able to see through the bristol's surface to the printout so I could ink on the bristol using the sketch as a guide. For pens, I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs). Here I have an in-process photo I took with my phone and posted back when I was inking this piece.

Other than the cover, this was my first illustration with Badger, so I started by inking him in first. His robe is based on the way Arthur Rackham used for Badger back when he illustrated the book.


I'm terrible at tracking time as I work, sometimes I think because I'd rather not know, but I think I only inked this piece for one long night. I did have to re-work some of the perspective for the beams right on the page. And I did use some white correction fluid for the snow on the left and to fade out the brightening effect from the candle on the right.

Here you can see the completed image as it will appear in the book along with 49 other B&W illustrations and 20 color.




Wind in the Willows from IDW will be available Fall of 2016 and is available to pre-order on Amazon.com:



For all my other Willows Process Posts:





2016 Appearances:
New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9

2017 Appearance Dates Coming Soon...

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Re-Run Star Wars Variant Cover

With nine years of blogposts, I will continue to Re-Run past posts for the new fans or folks who may have missed a post the first time around.

Part of the reasoning is also that for various reasons (The health of my Mother, convention travel, behind on deadlines, and projects I'm not able to share yet) I see the need to revisit an old post once a month or so.
You can also go back and see any past posts using the Blog index: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2013/12/blog-index.html)
This week:



As Marvel regained the reigns to Star Wars comics, I was told by an editor there that Newbury Comics stores had requested me to do their in-store variant for Star Wars #1! At the link below you can see the full process for this cover from concept all the way through to finished colors and every step in between:


Full Star Wars variant cover Process Post:

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