Sunday, June 20, 2010

Intercontinental Process

This time I thought I'd show some process all the way through to the final product. If you're just tuning in, these are for an internationally themed pin-up card deck I'm producing with Josh Cooley.

These are some of my first thumbnails, not all of the pieces started out this way but it definitely got the ball rolling.



You can see a few of the early ideas for the Egypt card above but I later settled on Cleopatra. As you can see by the roughs below I did some exploration before I found a pose I liked. I knew I wanted to have Cleopatra swooning over a photo of Marc Antony, but how exactly took a little trial and error.



Ultimately I decided with this version since it seemed the most queenly.



The composition wasn't quite working right with the way the corner suits were falling so I flopped the image when I inked it.



And the final card with color.



Here's the same process again with the Vietnam card.





When I inked this one I separated the foreground elements from the background. Just for ease of inking mostly, but it came in handy when I was coloring too.



And the final colored composited card.



The deck will be available to buy at the San Diego Comic-con in July, then shortly thereafter will be available for purchase here on the blog.

24 comments:

Adam Temple said...

Wicked post! So cool to see your process!

Dongnobot said...

These are fantastic, thanks for posting! Do you ever look at any reference photos in your process or do you just go for it?

Unknown said...

Hell yeah, will be much better then a "The Dog" playing deck.

Craig said...

Awesome. Wonder if my wife would let me fly into Cali just so I can pick up some girly cards a little early....

joscha said...

Awesome, thanks for this post I love to see your process. (Did you guys do a"Holland" card too btw?)

Ben Newman said...

Great stuff Bill! love the vietnam card. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these decks!

Fred said...

Any possibilities of uncut sets or proof sheets? They would look great framed

Pablo Solís said...

I love your designs!! I want you to design me a character for my short plz!

rad sechrist said...

I can't wait to get this.

mike said...

yeah! cleopatra! you made my day, bill. :)

Larry Levine said...

Beautiful work!!

chromasketch said...

Hey Bill. Thanks for posting this. its always awesome to see your process and see the progression that you went through, to get to the final.

Chris George said...

Fantastic work, Bill! Thanks for posting this.

Unknown said...

I 'm loving all of the posts about these cards and im getting more and more stoked for the day i can buy a set!

Great to see process work and I love all of the cards so far! :)

GeeBee said...

It has been a loooong time since my last visit, Bill.Sweet cards !
I sure will buy these ^^!

Kt Shy said...

These are adorable! Hope I'm able to grab a pack at SDCC before they're all gone :)

Lesley Vamos said...

These are great! Thanks for showing us your process ^_^

Howard Shum said...

Great seeing the process!

xenos said...

rough sketches are the best...

xenos said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Craig Elliott said...

Just beautiful! Can't wait to see the whole set! I hope you'll be by me again in the Illustrators area at Comicon!

-Craig

Craig Elliott Gallery

Stephanie Ramirez said...

Awesome! Can't wait to get these next month.
And that is the coolest Iron Man ever :)

Kei Phillips said...

A wonderful blog, really great work.
:)

Anson Jew said...

Man, I especially liked seeing your sketchbook doodles! The drawings are so clear and confident without a wasted mark! It's like you've mastered the calligraphy of a secret girlie alphabet!