WALKTHROUGH // comic cover - part 1

Hey guys! You might have seen the comic covers I made for the Horizon Zero Dawn comics that I posted on my socials. Here’s an overview of the ones that have been released:

I get a lot of questions about the process behind my client work, so I decided to put together a little walkthrough of the process for these comic covers! This was a job for Titan Comics and Guerrilla Games, although the art direction of the comic cover went through Guerrilla Games. I’ve worked with Guerrilla in the past as a concept artist for Horizon Zero Dawn, so it was a huge honor when I was asked to make some variant covers for this new comic. Hopefully this walkthrough will give you guys some insights into how I adapt my process to a brief and feedback from my client. Here we go!

01 // BRIEF

It always starts with a brief! That is basically a conversation or e-mail in which the client explains what they want you to make and answer questions. I was familiar with the Horizon universe because I had made concept art for them in the past, so I didn’t have to dig too deeply to get a sense of the world these characters live in. I jumped on a video call with the people involved in this project and they told me more about the comic. From that, it was clear that they wanted the focus to be on the main character, Talanah - a character that is also featured in the HZD game. They explained that Talanah had a deep bond with Aloy, who was her mentor. I suggested the first ideas that popped into my mind - Aloy and Talanah standing together, ready to fight as a team - and they reacted positively to that. I was also given some good reference images of the character, and so I was ready to start drawing! 

Tips when getting a brief:

• Ask questions about the project and find out as much as possible about it. If you’re doing a character-based project, ask about the characters and get insights into how your client sees this character - what is their personality? What is their story? This will help set the mood for the first sketches you will make. 
• Take notes! You’ll be amazed how quickly you can forget things that were just discussed, so writing the main points down is helpful. 
• If you have any creative ideas during the brief, bring them up and bounce them off of your client! Then you can already get a sense of whether your client feels positively about it, or whether it’s totally not what they’re looking for. The sooner you can get this feedback, the better!
• Agree in advance how many rounds of work you will do and also agree in advance on when the client must provide feedback for you to be able to move forward. Otherwise, you might get stuck waiting for their feedback, or end up getting feedback after you've already started on the next step, which will slow you down in meeting your deadline. 

02 // ROUGH SKETCHES

When it comes to creating client work, I always try to provide them with multiple variations of the same idea. This is a way for me to push myself to come up with interesting concepts, but also a way to get the conversation going with the client. If there are a few different concepts and ideas, it becomes a lot easier for the client to point out what is and isn’t working for them. For this project, I knew I wanted to make a powerful portrait of Aloy and Talanah standing together, and explored 3 different angles for it. 

I started with a sketch, which I try to keep rough and loose. It’s about the idea, not about the details! The main thing I’m thinking about is ‘camera angle’ - are we looking at them from below or above? I want the drawing to feel dynamic and alive, so I want there to be a height difference between the characters - this leads they eye and also brings some tension and excitement to the relationship between Talanah and Aloy.

As you can see, the outfit details are minimal - I’m trying to work from their pose and make sure the gesture and attitude is right. I use the technique that you can see in my tutorial on construction:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-video-38377684 

I personally like to work in color, which I feel says a lot about the mood and feel. So I add some quick colors to these sketches: 

I use color editing tools to tweak the colors so they feel ‘together.’ Selective color is my favorite editing tool for that. For more info about how I use color editing tools, check out my tutorial for this month:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-colors-39277902 

For a final touch, I add some rim light to give contrast to the characters. When there’s multiple characters in one scene, it can be a bit harder to read their pose and silhouette, so this bright rim light coming from the right side can help with readability as well as giving some depth to the image. 

 Now the 3 variations are done! This took me about 1 day of work. I send them over to the client and await feedback. 

Tips for making rough variations: 

• Draw your first idea, and then push yourself to come up with 2 different ways to convey that same idea again. We often feel like our first idea is best, but sometimes pushing yourself further to try new options can yield interesting results! 
• Add just enough detail and visual information to get your idea across to your client, but don’t waste any time on unnecessary details. Remember, your client will probably choose just 1 option of the 3, so two of them will be scrapped. You don’t want to spend more time on them than strictly necessary.
• Keep the layers separated so you can easily shift stuff around. 

The feedback from my client was roughly this: 

• Option 1 was their favorite, but they wanted less overlap between the characters. Their suggestion was to change the pose by moving Talanah’s arm down, like it was in option 3. 
• They also wanted Aloy to face the viewer. 
• Lastly, they wanted more nature elements in the foreground, like grass and flowers.

This feedback illustrates pretty well why having multiple options is helpful - usually clients can pick a favorite but want to include elements from other variations as well! 

03 // ROUGH VERSION 

Time to work on a rough version that integrated the client feedback! I start with a rough sketch in which I work out the poses. I need to implement the changes that the client requested and see if that works - and it does! Now there is a little more breathing room between the characters.

 Then it’s time to apply some flat color to the sketch. I worked out the colors in the thumbnail, so I can just pick those and apply them to this cleaner sketch. I also draw Talanah’s armor on a separate layer so I can easily shift things around. It’s important for her pose and gesture to still be readable, so I might have to shift some of her armor around to make sure it doesn’t obscure her line of action.

 Finally, then I work in some lighting and effects. Basically this means adding the rim light again, as well as adding some gradients to soften the colors in some areas - particularly around Aloy. I want the light to create a sense of space between the characters. I also paint in some grass and particles flying in the air with motion blur. This adds some movement to the piece.

 I make sure to keep all elements on separate layers for now. With my personal art, I like to work from as few layers as possible, but for client work I want to keep everything separated so that I can shift stuff around. Here’s a screenshot of my layers panel just to show how many layers there are: 

 (I know, I’m really bad at layer names… haha)

Creating this rough version took me one day of work. I send this over to my client and await feedback before finalizing! 

Tips for making rough versions:

• Try to work out the final pose, composition, and color scheme - the foundational aspects of the drawing.
• At the same time, hold back on finalizing, because the client could still request many changes. Keep your layers separated, and don’t spend too much time rendering out small details. Just work on as much as you need to in order to give a clear impression of how the final piece will look.
• Basically, make sure all of the elements are there, but that they are not polished or detailed yet.

The client provided me with this feedback: they liked where the piece was going, but felt the characters’ weapons were not visible enough. They asked for the characters to be shifted around and for the camera to ‘zoom out’ a little, creating more space around them. Having the characters on separate layers made this an easy change to implement! 

04 // FINAL VERSION

Now it’s time to finalize! I got the green light to complete this image, so now I can zoom in and work on all those little details. 

I can now merge some of the layers, like merging the weapon with the character layer. This way I have a clearer overview - there’s still a lot of layers but it’s a lot easier to figure out where I should be working from. Here’s a screenshot of the layers panel to give an idea.  Basically it consists of these four main groups, where each group is a different depth level of the drawing: 

 Then I finalize the layers one by one: first talanah, then aloy, then the background (sky and clouds), and then the foreground (grass). 

The final step is to elevate it to a ‘finished’ level by adding that final pass of finer detail. This includes shines, effects, loose strands of hair, stitching, bits of dust catching the light, etc. These smaller details are what makes the image come to life. I also use my feathered lasso tool to push the lighting effects, for example by darkening the bottom of the characters and lightening the top area. More info about how I use the feathered lasso tool here:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/step-by-step-36570445 

05 // DELIVERY OF FINAL WORK

This took me about a day’s work, so a total of three days to complete this cover. This is how long it takes me personally, but if it takes shorter or longer for you, that's fine too. Every artist has their own pace! The most important thing is that you can break your process down into basic steps and clearly communicate to your client how much time it will take you before starting.

The last step is to send the final work over to my client! I was a bit worried about the overlap between the title and Talanah’s head, so I provided them with two variations so they could pick the one that works best. The client approved variation #2, and that wrapped up the process!

Here's the final version without the white border, which I delivered to the client so that they could determine the crop:

I hope you found this walkthrough useful, especially those of you who want to get into freelance work! I will post a quick walkthrough of the other two covers as well, but more compact. If you have any questions about this process or my client work, please ask away!