Project JKF-1: Cold Black Heart Cover

I’ve just submitted the second piece for my collaboration with John Fulton.  The front cover for his story “Cold Black Heart”.

I’m trying to establish a slick workflow which at the moment looks like this:

  1. Receive the project brief.
    1. This step just involved reading the story and revisiting John’s requirements.
  2. Do research relating to the brief.
    1. For this I looked up medical diagrams of the human heart.
  3. Do thumbnails to brainstorm compositions.
    1. Just for fun, I decided to do the thumbnails in traditional acrylic paint: ThumbNails
  4. Select the best composition.
    1. I selected the first composition.
  5. Gather visual references related to the selected composition.
    1. I gathered visual references of women’s faces with what I felt were cold, distant expressions.
  6. Do construction studies.
    1. I skipped this step.
  7. Do perspective studies.
    1. I skipped this step.
  8. Do value studies.
    1. I performed this step in traditional acrylics again: ValueStudy
  9. Do colour studies.
    1. I skipped this step since there would be minimal colour.
  10. Do the main illustration.
    1. Here’s where I switched to working digitally in Clip Studio Paint: Cold Black Heart 1 Cold Black Heart 2A Small Cold Black Heart 3 Small Cold Black Heart 7 Small
  11. Take a break.
    1. I had a couple of nights off.
  12. Final finishing details.
    1. Here’s the final that I submitted to John: Cold Black Heart Cover Final Small

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *