Liz Radtke's Cover Sketches for Do: The Book of Letters

Process of sketching the cover for Do: Book of Letters
Sketch process between Liz Radtke and I as she illustrates the cover of Do: The Book of Letters. This is just one way an art director and artist can work together and certainly not the only way. We've been friends for years, so that certainly influences how well we work together.

My first direction to Liz was something like this: "Let's continue using the same trio of pilgrims for the covers, with dreadlock kid taking the spotlight. This time, they're being chased by some kind of crazy monster on the back cover. I dunno. Something crazy, though. Go wild."

She came back with the first sketch you see up top. She says: "The monster on the back is kind of a mix of a Kirin and Lamassu (a Sumerian god.) He is being teased by that awful rabbit jerk. With eggs. Get it? Rabbit eggs. :P Hopefully no one will read into this too much as a battle between Christians and Pagans, but I do love me some weird mythology."

I compiled some art references as notes to change some of the expressions on the lead pilgrim's face. Also slapdashedly collaged in other pilgrims for posture and composition reference. (These references are all pulled from Bannister's blog, by the way.)

Liz just sent the revised sketch you see at the bottom. Fantastic! Approved, with only a couple minor tweaks.

This cover will be executed much like the cover for Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. She'll create some nice clean black line vectors and I'll fill them in with cel shaded colors.

» Liz Radtke's Blog

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