Catwoman, Making Of a Base Card.

For the Women Of Legend set, I've had the opportunity to do my first base card for Cryptozoic and DC. Catwoman, no less! Every part of the work was a blast, from prelim to finished colors. And a cameo again of Monsieur le Baron, a.k.a. Jacques Insermini.

Cryptozoic wanted to see Catwoman stealing a jewel, hanged by a rope from the ceiling. First I've made 2 proposals, with intentions of colors.

They went for proposal #2, less dramatic angle, but well... I've done the pencil and inking on a DC comics template, a bit taller in proportion than the card.

Oh, don't call anymore, folks! The original is sold!



The process for the colors is the same as Galactus, thought there are a few more layers for textures and light effects.

Aldebaran of Taurus

I really am NOT into that Saint Seiya frenzie. A friend of mine asked me to watch the new OAVs (Hades) and I really dig the character. So... Best bit: The collumn and the armor. I thought afterward that I could have use a pic of Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo) as reference for the face.

Darkness

I've begun to draw this one at work, and turned out that french publisher Semic wanted illustrations to fill in the french edition of Darkness. So I've coloriée it on computer at home. At that time, I didn't ink my work, but cleaned it with pencils through a lightbox.

 

Galactus, Step-by-Step.

A friend of mine gave me some paper board from Marvel Comics, so I've tried them with this character. I love Galactus' design.

I did the pencil on a separate sheet though.

And inked it on the board with my Pitt pens. I think there was a long time that I haven't really inked a piece. At that time, I was mostly cleaning-up with a pencil through a boxlight. Since this one, I don't do it anymore. Here is the result, devoid of the Marvel template.

I've messed up the background a bit while inking (I'm very anal with my inking), so I've done it on computer. I've redone the background on the board since and this one is for sale. Below is the computer version.

I have a monochromatic eye for illustration. I've chosen a violet/purple tonality for the piece.

Nothing fancy, flat colors.

Then I go for the shadows, on a separate layer. Mostly, I use the same color for the whole shadows, using a lot of selections.

And on another separate layer, the lights. Actually, I do shadows and lights at the same time.

Then I add FX, using the different blend of the layers. Some layers are over the lines, some under.

And voilà!