Issue 300 B
Ten years ago when I started doing these “Dreams of Things” covers the whole idea was to do something simple. I wanted a series that wasn’t so elaborate that it took up a lot of my time. I wanted simple and powerful images that had a graphic design quality to the drawing. But as anyone who has ever drawn “Simple” knows (and I even knew it at the time but ignored it) it takes a lot of time to simplify things and break them down to their essential form.
Over time (a couple of years) the covers got more elaborate and more illustrative. And they took less time. One of the reasons they took less time was that I got my method of making them down. I would start simple and then get complex. I started each one with a thumbnail drawing from one of my inkbook/sketchbooks. All of those drawings were already simple so there is nothing to strip down. I still have to draw them and find the essential shapes but I’m down for that.
That brings us to today when I have already drawn over three hundred of these covers. For issue three hundred I’m making alternate covers (just like real comic books often have) and so the one I’m writing about today is issue 300 B. It’s the second number 300 that I’ve finished.
There is another series of comic book covers that I’ve worked on over the years. It’s called “Deep Space” and I think I’ve made about a dozen of those covers. They usually have someone in a chunky spacesuit in them. That someone is usually by themselves on some barren planet. They are faceless and lonely covers.
I sort of referenced those covers in this one. There is a person in a big chunky spacesuit but he is not in deep space. Plus he has those giant spikes on his shoulders. They seem inappropriate for a spacesuit. He also might be a little bit slimmer than my other space men but he does have the big boots.
The color on this cover is different than my usual colors. Almost all of these covers have to do with a dream-like space. Therefore the colors are often not literal. A sky can be green and the grass can be blue. My usual colors have a lot more to do with what color works in what part of the drawing rather than what that drawing is of. It’s a much more modernist sense of color than a reality based illustrative sense of color. If I need a bit of blue here then I put a bit of blue here even if that’s not reality. After all these are about the dreamworld.
What I did differently here is to decide that I wanted the doorway behind the spaceman to be bright. I don’t know what kind of doorway it is but it’s not a normal one. I used a scumbling technique of yellows going into oranges to create the sense of a bright light behind him. I knew that door had to be the brightest spot in the drawing and almost everything else had to be darker. It was a decision that would affect every other color on the page. I usually don’t make those type of decisions when coloring these.
The first colors that I put down after the doorway were the dark blues of the sky. I knew that I wanted a blue sky and not a strange colored sky to ground the whole piece. But it had to be dark to offset the orange doorway. I went with a textured sky to give it a bit of drama.
Along with the sky came those wooden palisades in the background. I often draw fences in these “Dreams of Things” pieces because they are a good geometric object but they also separate one area from another. Both literally and figuratively. In this case I colored one set like wood but the set behind them is green. These act more like trees because of their color. I often draw green triangle mountains in this spot and I colored them as such. All of the background has a lot of drawn texture in it.
Strangely the multi-hued grey that spans the space behind the boots of the figure was the toughest color decision. I had an idea for a lot of dark purple in this piece but I needed some neutrals too. I often use grey as a light neutral but here I went dark with it and even added in some purples. I put some lighter grey directly under his feet.
With the space under that light grey I dropped my first dark purple. This was going to be my darkest dark color answer sit back in space the most. Every other color would have to play off of it. I followed that up with some light ocean-like green stripes under that. I wanter a little bit of water in the scene.
The two U-shaped lighter grays followed as I finished up the bottom with some more dark purples and then finally those orange stripes in the middle. I wanted a little bit of brightness there but I didn’t want it to be as bright as the yellow in the doorway. So I used the darkest orange from the doorway. That got me where I wanted to go.
The space above the doorway was fairly simple. I wanted to keep it all neutral and mostly dark. I brought the dark grays from down the bottom up there plus a little bit of the dark sky color. I finished it off with some of the browns from the fence.
I wanted a little bit more light in the piece so the front of the top was done with some of that same dark orange from the bottom plus some dark reds. Still that yellow in the doorway is my brightest bright.
The last thing that I colored was the figure. I knew how I was going to do it all along so it was the easiest part. Some yellow rim lighting of either side of him to emphasize how strong the light was behind him and then he would fade into dark purple. I like the way it came out.
There is a strangeness to this piece that I enjoy. The shapes are all a little weird and off in a way that makes them seem familiar but alien. Why is that doorway bulging? Is the whole thing bulging? What world is this? It’s not quite as dream-like as my usual ones but seems a little more like reality. But what reality?
These are the type of questions that I like exploring. So keep seeking things out there.