Wednesday 13 March 2019

HOUSE OF CEREBUS cover- color comparison


Benjamin Hobbs:

Greetings! It's been just over a year since the first CEREBUS AND HOBBS column.  As such, I thought it was time to update the banner!

If you haven't backed the POSTCARD FROM HELL Kickstarter, please do so NOW!  There's only a couple days left!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1349357665/cerebus-postcard-from-hell-no-1


This week, we'll be looking at the progression of the colors of for THE HOUSE OF CEREBUS #1. (Out January 2020.)

David Birdsong made the original cover.  He sent it looking something like this:

It also had a logo.

I considered coloring Jaka digitally, but didn't get past adding  Color Flats. The digital coloring didn't match with the watercolors on VARK THING:


To better match HOUSE OF SECRETS #92, the cover HOUSE OF CEREBUS #1 is a parody of, I added some hands to Vark Thing and colored the scene with watercolors:


Jaka and Vark Thing didn't look quite right, so I colored them again on separate sheets of water color paper:



With a few adjustments in Photoshop, here's the result:


I sent this version of the cover to Dave.  Here are his notes:

And here's the (hopefully) final version, incorporating his notes:

 


Next Week: More CIH? fun!

4 comments:

Birdsong said...

Great job, Benjamin!

This is the second cover in a row that is a result of a Sim-Hobbs-Birdsong collaboration (we could even squeeze Sean Robinson into that credit line as well for scanning of the Jaka figure and tweaking of the Vark Thing). The December 2019 issue, VARK THING, will feature the long lost, finally found Dave Sim Vark Thing drawing from 2010 that was seen on CerebusTV and sold to a collector. Nine years later it will finally see print on two different covers and the interior of those two issues. Also featured is the Jaka Like-A-Look. She's almost like Jaka, only no where near as intelligent. I'm not sure that's saying much about Jaka, she was never my favorite character in the original series.

Margaret said...

That looks great Benjamin! Nicely done.

Gary Boyarski said...

Nicely done! I'd like to see more of the Vark thing, he seems rather diminutive and almost lost in the background, but that's just my personal preference. Great job on the colors!

Glen said...

I wonder if anyone will attempt to colourize Cerebus once the books become public domain.