#scottbieser

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 3 Cover Process: Loose Pencils to inks

First I printed out the final layout sketch in very light non-photo blue on the actual comic art board, and began loosely penciling some details over it. With that basic loose penciled layout in place I finally began inking the drawing.

Then as I continued inking I moved on to the rest of the characters and some background elements, until I finished inking all the details, and finally added some Deleter screen tone in the background (where the title will be) to give it that old-school grey tone feel (and signed it of course)! 

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 3 Cover Process: Character sketches

Since the third book collects issues 6 and 7 of The Rovers, I wanted this third cover to contain elements from both books, so I went over both issues to decide what characters or moments to include, and sketched them out to begin visualizing the possibilities. 

The top sketches show Mr. Kline's dramatic death moment, the infected Louis Kolash, the pretty cool looking CDC vehicle, and the evil Mr. Mesh...

Since I wanted to once again include Cinderella Kid and Special Ed in this third and final cover, I thought it would be cool to depict the scene where they're sneaking into a top secret facility (as they're dressed completely different than I'd drawn the before, in totally black outfits and face paint), so I made these other sketches (bottom) to figure out their poses from the angle I wanted...

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 2 Cover: Phantom Ace process

For Phantom Ace, I took a few reference pics (as I often do), borrowing a toy gun, chose the one I liked best, sketched it out with the Phantom Ace uniform, and from there moved on to the actual cover!

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 2 Cover Process: Inking Scofflaw

Close up of my crowquill nib (dip) pen as I was inking Scofflaw's funky hair (very fun to do)...

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 2 Cover Process: Character sketches

Since the second book collects issues 4 and 5 of The Rovers, I wanted the second cover to contain elements from both books if possible, so I went over both issues and eventually decided to showcase the exciting car showdown from issue 4, and to include the original Rovers team whose origin we learn in issue 5. 

Of course, this meant getting to know these characters a bit more, so I re-read the issue, taking character notes and drawing my take on each of them to help me get a sense of who they were, so that I could hopefully bring all this with me when tackling the actual cover.

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 1

- Top: The final, black and white, cropped cover to first issue The Rovers Collection, reprinting issues # 1-3 of the 80's Malibu Comics series written and created by Steve Bennett, inspired by the original Rovers cover # 1 drawn by Scott Bieser.

- Bottom: The original, uncropped, full color scan of the completed page

[arielaguire]

2017 THE ROVERS Collection # 1 Cover Process: Inking

- Started inking using my crow quill nib pen (my favorite part of the process)!

- I drew all the basic shape line work for both characters using my crow quill nib pens (on the left), and then filled in the large black areas and shadows using brushes (on the right)...

- Then I went in and drew the small crosshatching and detail lines using various technical pens (mostly Microns, Rotring Tikky Graphic, and Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens), first on Cinderella Kid (left), then on Special Ed and his vehicle outline (right)...

- Finally, I used brushes to draw the trees and continued using the technical pens to detail the vehicle and draw the rest of the background. The final step was to use white ink with brushes to add some small details over the black (and make corrections)...done!

[arielaguire]

THE ROVERS Collection # 1 Cover Process: Sketches 1 (Characters)

Before I even thought about sketching cover ideas, I first read all 7 issues of The Rovers, to get an understanding of the stories and characters. 

Then I began with these simple character sketches of the two main characters (based on the comics drawn by Scott Bieser), Cinderella Kid and Special Ed, to start getting a feel for them, since we'd decided the first cover would be a nice big shot of both of them looking cool.