An Overly Exhaustive Making of A TMNT8 cover Part 2: Pencils and Inks

Benjamin Hobbs:

The Remastered TMNT8 Kickstarter campaign is moving right along. One of the covers on the campaign was drawn and colored by me:

Over the next several weeks I'm going to show an Overly Exhaustive Progression of this cover.  This week: The pencils and inks. 

Last we saw the cover, I had laid out kinda tight pencils on Cerebus and Renet and the circles, and REALLY rough pencils everywhere else:

The next step was inking the rings.  Is it a good idea to start inking before the pencils are finished? Probably not.  But at least this way I wasn't smearing the penciled rings as I was sorting out what else would go on the page:

Then I added more inked circles, worked out the design around two of the Turtles and penciled the Turtles faces. There are also lips floating to the right of Renet. I was using the board as sketch paper.  These lips were never intended to be part of the final composition:

Next, I inked the bottom two Turtles.  Added a design around one of the top tier Turtles and laid in rough text/logo elements:

This next one is strange. It looks like I stopped inking halfway through the top right Turtle's head.  The designs around the Turtles are all inked. Renet's hands, previously only light roughed in, are now fully penciled. One is inked. I had forgotten to draw the fins on Renet's helmet, so those are now roughed in. The floating lips to the right of her are now erased.  If you look at Cerebus' raised foot, you can see there is a smaller circle newly added. I was thinking about making it smaller. The larger size did not look accurate to Cerebus, but I really liked. Decisions!:

I inked more of Renet.  I debated about how much ink to put on her, and how much of the shape should be made by color.  Previously, there had been a shadow penciled in on the under side of her leg. This has now been erased here. The fins on her helmet are inked in.  Cerebus' foot was inked with the larger oval.  The NO. 8, previously at the top of the cover, has been placed at the bottom, with the price on the opposite side.  The top circle is now filled with the rough pencil of the design from Renet's helmet.  Cerebus' arm isn't inked here.  It's too long, and I had decided to move it downward:

Cerebus' arm is moved down, as well as the Time Scepter. The last bits of Renet's helmet are inked. The pencils under the Turtles and rings have been erased. The rings looked too thin after erasing the pencil,  so additional ink has been applied:

Cerebus' arm is inked, as is the Time Scpeter, the power coming out of it and the logo.  The only thing not in place here is the price, which at the time I was guessing as $10:

I scanned in the pencils, after whiting out a few areas.  Although there are a few areas that needed white out, but didn't get it. Such as the squiggle next to Cerebus' arm.  I decide to put $10 as the price on the cover. Reasoning that I could fix it digitally if I was wrong about it:

Next Week: An Overly Exhaustive Making of A TMNT8 cover Part 3: Colors