Saturday, October 24, 2009
X-Men: Lost Tales #1, 1997
It was nice having a chance to do a generic "poster shot" cover for an X-Men book but this one went south after I handed in the color guide. The nice, neutral, dark gray background – designed to make the primary colors on the costumes pop – was replaced with a wimpy green monstrosity by someone in the office. It ruined the whole effect.
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Amazing work Kevin,I enjoy you work.
ReplyDeleteGreetings
Thanks, Fernando!
ReplyDeleteMr. Nowlan ,
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say that I am a huge fan of your work and that it blows me away every time I see it. I also wanted to how you get such great clothing folds in your characters. do you use reference or is it mostly made up ? Thank you again.
Best,
Ray Bonilla
LOL The few times I've done B&W cover art at Marvel the colorist dropped acid before starting my page. One of the biggest WTF color jobs was on Rom #42
ReplyDeletehttp://www.coverbrowser.com/image/rom-spaceknight/42-1.jpg
Fuschia, Chartreuse and Purple are the first colors I would think of using. :-)
I see what you mean, Joe. They were probably trying to find the brightest colors possible since Rom is mostly colorless. Or maybe you're right about the acid. That's a nice cover drawing anyway.
ReplyDeleteRay, I'll work with reference if I can find it for clothing folds, but 95% of it is made up. Early on, I really struggled with folds and drapery but it's getting a little easier. I have two tips for you: 1. Keep your first sketch/gesture lines really light. Use the side of the pencil where you can, instead of the point. 2. Remember to stagger the folds; thick to thin, thin to thick, thick to thin, etc.
ReplyDeleteMr. Nowlan, when you send these in, with the color guide, did you also send instructitions that the color you see is intentinal? i would think they would have more trust, in the artists vision, being you.
ReplyDeletepeace out
They (editors in general) want to sell books so they want the covers to be colorful and stand out on the store racks. I'm sure that was their intention here, but I think it failed and came out very bland.
ReplyDeleteI agree, they ballsed up the background colour. Must be very frustrating to be over-ruled
ReplyDeleteYes, I was told to make it "pop" more, and discard the gray background and substitute the green. It was my 2nd ever gig at Marvel, and I just did what I was told. I wasn't happy with the results either.
ReplyDelete