"Grim" cover art process: The End / The Tower

  I've decided to put more effort into keeping up with this blog.  Why?  I don't know!  But here we are.  I had saved in a desktop folder progress shots of many illustrations, and now it's been long enough these have been published for a while.  Nevertheless, it's fun to go back and see how everything went.

  BOOM! Studios asked me to create a series of tarot themed covers for their popular series, "Grim", after one that I had done as a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive turned out well, and they were hoping to continue the theme.

  I had a tarot card deck when I was a teen, most likely inspired by visits to a local magic/spell shop in Connecticut and seeing "The Craft" in theaters.  Here is a take on "The Tower" card, since the theme of this issue was serious chaos and destruction:

The End!

the inspiration

The little sketch.  Did this on some scrap paper found at my grandparent's retirement home.

The finished piece inked on bristol board, 11"x17" with pen and some brush.

  I work digitally so much it's a pleasure to go back to hand-drawn, and yet sometimes not having a consistent set of tools makes inking by hand difficult again.  It's probably smarter to stick with a small set of art tools that are mastered, but that requires a level of focus maybe I just don't have!