Illustrating Sonic the Hedgehog 291's Variant

I recently was asked to illustrate my very own cover! This marks the first time in nearly six years that I have drawn anything for the Sonic the Hedgehog comics - aside from uncredited stuff like fixing facial expressions/details or drawing in missing characters, here and there - and I was crazy excited! 

The plan originally was to produce the piece traditionally, in Copic Markers, with digital clean up. Unfortunately, I totally ran out of time  and ultimately colored this one digitally! 

Anyway, I wanted to take you guys through the process...

::LAYOUTS::

This issue is taking place during a 25th anniversary, "origins" storyline running in the main book, and as such all of the variant covers thus far have been scenes from the original 90s era of Sonic games. It was requested that I illustrate a scene out of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (&Knuckles), as that game hadn't been tackled yet, and that I make sure to include our main classic trio! 

I love me a good Sonic vs Knux throwdown, so my first instinct was to have them brawling in the Hidden Palace zone. We'd actually already done a cover over on Sonic Universe with the same concept, though... So I also worked up the same layout for Angel Island! Other ideas were possibly teleporting into Sky Sanctuary, or looking upon the looming Death Egg threat! Ultimately, we went with the original fight set in Angel Island! 

::PENCILS & INKS::

As the piece was originally meant to be colored with markers, I actually drew the final art a touch smaller than a typical comic book art - 11x14 inches instead of 11x17. Much of Angel Island's details were going to be colored in instead of drawn, too.

::COLORS::

Ultimately, this artwork was colored digitally in Photoshop 7 - which was actually wa-a-ay easier to capture details in the cliffside to match Angel Island. I also tried something a little different with the sky, painting over a photo reference of a cloud to get the feel for it then freehanding the remainder. I actually really enjoyed how it came out, and hope to try it a little more often in my interior work, too! 

Sonic the Hedgehog #291's variant comes out in January! Be sure to ask your local comic book store to order it!!