WWE Magazine Cover.
A couple of months ago I was asked to provide the artwork for the cover of issue #4 of WWE Heroes Magazine. For those who don't know, that's a mag devoted American pro wrestling.
The artwork I had to produce depicted the actual wrestler Chris Jericho, I confess I wasn't familiar with him, but then the whole professional wrestling thing just seems like so much pantomime to me, rather than an actual sport, so it's not something I follow.
Anyway, the editor provided me with a basic cover layout & reference photos of the guy & I came up with this initial sketch. The monster is supposed to be the guy's 'inner demon' taking physical form...or something. When I submitted this, the editor quite rightly said that the pose of the main character looked more like he was screaming in anguish rather than exhulting in his transformation, & requested I alter the pose slightly to emphasise this.
So I did this figure study, which captured the correct feel I think. I pasted this into the image in Photoshop, printed it out & using that as the pencil stage, I worked on my lightbox tracing thru with my markers & Sharpies.
This is the finished inked stage, which was approved.
Here is the final cover as it with appear, will color & logos etc. You can see this & the alternative cover to this issue done by series artist Andy Smith on the official WWE website here. The issue hits the stands on June 22.
The artwork I had to produce depicted the actual wrestler Chris Jericho, I confess I wasn't familiar with him, but then the whole professional wrestling thing just seems like so much pantomime to me, rather than an actual sport, so it's not something I follow.
Anyway, the editor provided me with a basic cover layout & reference photos of the guy & I came up with this initial sketch. The monster is supposed to be the guy's 'inner demon' taking physical form...or something. When I submitted this, the editor quite rightly said that the pose of the main character looked more like he was screaming in anguish rather than exhulting in his transformation, & requested I alter the pose slightly to emphasise this.
So I did this figure study, which captured the correct feel I think. I pasted this into the image in Photoshop, printed it out & using that as the pencil stage, I worked on my lightbox tracing thru with my markers & Sharpies.
This is the finished inked stage, which was approved.
Here is the final cover as it with appear, will color & logos etc. You can see this & the alternative cover to this issue done by series artist Andy Smith on the official WWE website here. The issue hits the stands on June 22.
posted by Staz Johnson at 8:00 AM
2 Comments:
Awesome cover Staz. That would be a dream job for me... especially if it was drawing the Undertaker. That demon on the cover is something else :o)
Lovely stuff Staz! great to see the stages from pencil to colour as well.
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