Darker than Noir Cover

06/19/2011

Howdy all!! Long time no see. I decided to write a quick blog post pertaining to how the book cover for Grand Mal Press' upcoming novella "Darker than Noir" was created. The book is not set to be released anytime soon; however a preview, featuring the cover, is available to the public. As promised to a couple of fans, here is my process for creating the illustration. First off let me start by saying that this piece was created using Corel Painter XI, using a Cintiq 21 WX Tablet, and took a total of 22 hours.

In the first image we have the composition drawn using a pen and then scanned. Once the image was loaded, I was having a hard time determining how the face of the detective should look, so I shaded in an overall tone to help my painting which was also done on the hand. Since it is digital, drawing on the sketch does not hinder the painting, as we can just delete that layer once it no longer has a purpose. Now we can move on to the painting!!

Due to my eyesight, I start all my paintings in Black & White. I lay in my pure blacks, which has become something I love in illustrations. A sense of contrast between the pure black and white has sort of become of my thing. I know that many say there are no pure blacks and whites in the real world. I really dont care, it looks slick.

Once most of my tones are in place I start to work on the details, focusing on the shirt, glass, pistol, and the shades in the background. I still have not spent a tone of time blending or anything, just big simple blocks of tone.

After about 10 hours we have the final black and white version of the painting. The edges have been cleaned, horizontal slices have been added to give a classic noir feel, and we ghouled up the female character. I originally painted her as a clean upstanding woman who was supposed to consol our detective. Once it was in place it threw off the concept, so I gave her some scars. Originally there were mere drying mascara tracks, however it turned into skin peeling off and cracking. Allowing for teeth to be shown in their full glory.

Now that the Black and White painting is in place and everything looks tight, we went ahead and placed some color over the top just to get a sense of the color direction. I always have an idea in my head of what the final image will look like, but you can always surprise yourself with a color that you never thought would work.

After hours of laying colors and blending the blocked tones with a custom natural brush to give a slightly more realistic look, we have our final painted illustration. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you would like more details on the process, let me know. I will be sure to go into more detail on the next post!!

If you would like ask Stephen a question, contact him at: stephenbryant@srbproductions.net