Tuesday, February 23, 2016

gone down

Final art and process stuff for the cover to 12 Gauge Comics' adaptation of New York Times Bestselling author Ace Atkins' Last Fair Deal Gone Down. Did this back in December, the book comes out in May, you can pre-order it here. Rico warmed up the palette at the point in the process where the arrow turns yellow, 12 Gauge provided a font for the non-logo type, but otherwise I did everything myself: drawing, colors, logo, and graphic design. An overwhelming amount of work at times, especially factoring the front and back covers, as well as the spine, all needed to work separately and together. Was looking at a lot of Blue Note album covers and Leroy Neiman, and got tipsy to draw the saxophone, because I wanted it to look loosey goosey. Growing up in the 80's gave me a real saxophone allergy, which I eventually got over, but it was very difficult to think of someone playing one without the cliche's coming to mind first.  Would start drawing and hear the theme song to Roseanne and get nauseous, then I saw a picture of Ben Webster and was cured, he's too cool. Bonus points if you can find the 2 hidden arrows.