This is the second “The Acid Ram” cover I’ve done in the last couple of weeks and I think I’m getting a grip on them now. This may only be the second one I’ve colored but I’ve also drawn four more of them and inked two of those. So I’ve been getting on it.
After finishing two of them I can say the main difference between these and my “Dreams of Things” covers is in the inking and coloring techniques. It starts with there being a lot more black ink on “The Acid Ram” covers. I’ve got a lot more graphic design stuff going on in the inks and therefore the color is simpler. I’ve used fewer color techniques in these first two because I did a lot more things in the ink stage. With “Dreams of Things” I leave a lot of the space open for color. With “The Acid Ram” that open space gets filled up with black shapes.
Take, for example, the main figure in this cover. He’s a guy in some sort of Robe with a high collar and a big hat. But his robe is mostly black with just a few stripes of orange and purple. The collar is only orange and yellow. The vast majority of the robe is filled in with black. There is even some black texture in the color stripes. In “Dreams” I probably would have left those black shapes open for color. It’s more dream like to have lots of color. “The Acid Ram” has a little more reality to its surrealism.
Usually I color from the background to the foreground. I figure out all my background colors first. But in this case I colored the balloon first. I got the idea in my head that it should be orange but not solid orange. It should have some other colors dabbed in there to give it some texture. The black shapes are very much a graphic design element and tend to flatten the balloon out. I thought the scumbling technique of the orange would give it some visual tension.
After that I knew I wanted the background clouds to be a light blue but I wasn’t sure what technique to put the blue down with. After some thought I came up with what you see here. I used the brush to make a thick to thin pointed line and layered four different blues down with that directional stroke. It’s got some direction and motion to it. At the end I layered in some light red and light green to give the color a little more depth.
That greenish brown in the background was actually the hardest part of the piece. I like the way it works now but it took a while to get there. First of all what are those shapes? They’re vaguely reminiscent of buildings but they’re not specifically buildings. They could be hills but not really. They’re mostly a design element so what is their color? I stated by putting in those dark blue stripes that now look a bit grey. I then layered a grey on top of them but it looked too grey. I then put a third color on top of that but I can’t even remember which. It could have been a light brown. I didn’t like that either so then I put a yellow on top to make the yellow/brown/green that it looks now.
Part of the reason I tinted that background towards yellow was that I knew I wanted those Q-Bert like structures on the bottom right to be brown. I went with a redder and more neutral brown to set them apart from the yellow brown of the far background. The striped shadow side of the block was colored first with an orange brown. Then I dropped in a neutral to reddish brown on the other side. This was all simple.
After all that brown I decided that some bright color was needed in those diagonal running stripes. I went with blue. I went with three different blues to have some contrast. Now it looks like a cubist version of streams running down a mountainside. That blue might be my favorite part of this color.
I then put some green in the very bottom right corner. I like that punch of green there. It works as a bit of bright color as a reference to grass. There is no grass technique to it but it’s in the right spot.
Finally we get to the main figure. I had no solid idea for this until I got to it. I ended up going mainly with orange and yellow to match with the balloon. But I wanted the orange to be subordinate to the big orange in the balloons so I added a second orange brown to the cloak to calm it down. I then added some purple to the cloak to further calm down the orange. With some yellow in the collar I think it works fine.
I made his hair green to add another pop of that color to go along with the grass.
Finally we get to the hat. I brought the purple of the robe up into the hat but here I made it the main color. Like the robe there is almost no room for color technique in the hat. It’s almost all black ink. I filled in the spaces with blue based purple and red based purple for a little contrast. I also wanted a spot of different color here too so I went with red. It was really my only choice and the only place that bright red is used on their cover. Otherwise we only have the dull red and pink of his face. I thought about yellow but I didn’t want it to distract from the yellow of the collar and the balloon’s eyes. So a beacon of red it became.
I like the way this one came out. I like that it’s different than my “Dreams of Things” covers. It’s got its own feel. It makes me ask questions that might have some slightly scary answers. That’s good.