Process...

Recently I drew a version of the cover for Ghostrider #40 for the Coveredblog:

While I've been working on the book with Adam Barnett, I kept this Ghostrider thing going on in the background. I used it as a warm up while I worked on pages, or if I just needed to sit in front of Photoshop for a few minutes everyday. So today I just wanted to show my process on how I got to the finished piece.

The first thing was choosing which cover I wanted to do. I recently picked up the first two volumes of the awesome Marvel Essential Ghostrider series. So this is like the first 50 issues of Ghostrider in two volumes published in B&W phone book size books. This image jumped out at me:

I liked working from the B&W image so I could color it without being influenced by the 'real' colors at all.

So the next step was to just draw ol' GR in my own style. This is the 'getting to know you' phase of the drawing.

SInce the original cover is full of lines and has this gritty raw power, I wanted to see if I could go ultra clean and sharp. I thought it would make a nice contrast. So the next step was to take out the ol' lightbox and start cleaning.

I also drew all of the background elements separately so I could move them all around in Photoshop to my liking.

So then after some manouvering in PS I came up with this:

Then it was on to hours of coloring goodness. PS offers so many different color combinations so easily sometimes it's hard to make up your mind. I eventually got to this one:

But then at the last minute, I decided on this one:

And that is, as they say, is that! :) Now back to the book...