Posted in: Comics | Tagged: black panther, Comics, entertainment, mark brooks, marvel, Midtown Comics

Mark Brooks Process Art For Black Panther #1 Cover

Published Tue, 15 Mar 2016 17:30:31 -0500

Mark Brooks has been sharing his art process for a Black Panther #1 cover over on Facebook. The cover is a retailer exclusive for Midtown Comics which you can order here. Brooks has been taking his fans on a step by step process including explaining most of the steps.

Here is what Brooks had to say and show:

Have to pause Han Solo this weekend to do my cover for Black Panther #1 for Midtown Comics. Think it might be a good time for a step by step! First up is the roughs for the throne and main figure.

Starting to flesh out the big cats.

Tightened the main figure, throne and background. I then convert the image to non-photo blue and print the piece out at 14'X20" on Strathmore 80 lbs Toned Tan paper. I ink only the blackest parts of the piece with a Pentel brush pen and Shinhan Touch Liners. I am doing most of the rendering in marker so I don't need to ink all the things that I want to have a more painterly look.

Laying in the marker work on the figure and throne. I always start with the main focus in case I mess up and have to start over. I use cool grays for anything that is blue, green, or purple hued and warm grays on anything red,brown, yellow, or orange. It ends up giving the impression of desaturated colors. Finished each figure with white prismacolor and white acrylic.

This is a step by step showing the lion from start to finish. Start with the darker areas and then flat in my base tone. Then it's blending, blending and more blending. The I flesh out my hot spots with prismacolor and a tiny bit of white acrylic.

You guys getting tired of this yet?:-) finished the big cats and have moved onto the background. This ends up being more time consuming than it looks but it super important to give the scene a mood and setting. Lots on blending large areas.

Finished the background and went through the entire piece making minor adjustments and adding any additional highlights and darkening shadows. One thing to note: When doing material like stone, metal, wood, etc texture is super important. because the background is stone I allowed the markers to smear and remain patchy instead of trying to keep them super smooth. it creates the illusion of stone and will make your piece more convincing. Time to scan and color!

And it's done! Coloring these marker pieces is remarkably easier than coloring an inked piece since all the rendering is already done. I simply lasso out each area and play with the color balance, a Hue and saturation to get it to the color I want. I then go in with the dodge brush and burn out the hottest whites so it pops a little more. Add an orange soft light filter and my lighting effects in the background and she's done! All told it takes about 3-4 hours to color a piece like this.