I haven't done any "process" posts for a while, so I'll walk you through the creation of the image, starting with the thumbnails sketch (as always, you can click these images for larger versions):
My editors liked this concept (we'd thrown away several others over the course of brainstorming a cover) but asked that I remove the cigarette from the hand of the figure on the left. Set in 1943-44, the story is chock full of smoking, but they felt that depicting it on the cover might be a bad idea given how big a market we're hoping schools and libraries will be. Fair enough.
On to finished pencils:
I was happy with this drawing, except for the fact that both men looked a bit pigeon-toed. A quick fix solved that problem:
There! Around this point the right hand of the man on the left started looking a little large to me, but I figured I'd take care of that in the inks:
And finally, a little bit of colour, in the same style in which I'm colouring the interior pages:
I fiddled around quite a bit with colour, and how dark the shading should be, but I won't bore you with all those steps. In the end, the colouring process for this book is pretty simple (unlike Tower of Treasure, which was much more involved).
It's all starting to feel more real now. The book's listing is up at the McClelland & Stewart website (in Canada) and the Random House site (in the U.S.), and Amazon.com and Amazon.ca both have listings as well. So, if you're one of the people who aren't going to be able to wait for a copy, I suppose there's nothing stopping you from pre-ordering so that you get one as soon as it ships.
Now all I need is to get back to work and finish the rest of the book!
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