#C_B Cover Art Progression

I've been keeping track of my progression in making the cover art for my latest fanfiction #Code_Break. Now that I've finished the cover art, I can show you all the progress that went into making the work. All you got to do it zoom out enough to see the entire page, and click the "next page" button to scroll through each progress. Hope you enjoy!^^

Page 1:
The first page is, of course, pretty basic looking. It stood as the placeholder and base for the cover art. The green codes in the background are based off of The Matrix, while the text's font is a downloaded font called Windows Command Prompt.

Page 2:
A little work on the text themselves, converting them into objects and manipulating them to look like they're crumbling with an added masking effect for light. The larger pieces are broken off from the original text, while the smaller "pixels" are simply added in at my leisure.

Page 3:
Now we get into the beginning stages of drawing the characters. This is the basic of the basic of sketches that will eventually become the characters in the cover art. The swirly shapes and outlines are merely to show where each character is and what their general pose will be. The white blotches were added to allow you to see the outlines as they are hard to see with the black background.

Page 4:
Toon Kritic is now drawn in with added fading effects at the top and bottom, as well as glowing for the eyes. But no shadow yet. The character are also drawn in with better forms and poses. You can start to see who's who now in this page.

Page 5:
Toon is properly shaded and lighted to fit the scene, giving him a dark presence overlooking the falling characters.

Page 6:
Rappel is now added into the center of the scene. Completely colored, with a blurry, green stream behind him. Another blurry mass is put at the front of Rappel's head to emulate that the contrail is forming around him, when in fact its behind him.

Page 7:
Contrail now has a gradient from green to yellow, the reason for this will be prevalent in the next page. The page also has white wind streams swirling around Rappel to better sell the scene.

Page 8:
We now add a complex addition to Rappel's design. "pixel" squares of Rappel's color are crumbling off of his body and swirling along with the stream. The effort to adding each and every small square in variations of Rappel's colors is very tedious. The degrading color also reveals some of Rappel's true colors as well. In addition, Rappel's face is highlighted with green streaks for lighting effects.

Page 9:
We now move to the characters. Golden Fox is up first with shadow and lighting, as well as the "digitizing pixel" included. I work by drawing a complete character, then go back to "break" the character's outlines and reform them into the shape for the "digitizing" effect. In addition, Rappel's goggles change as I recall his monocular lens is on his right eye.

Page 10:
Next up is Lightning Bliss. Her rainbow coloring was a little hard to figure out, until I discovered that lines can have a gradient effect to them, and thus made a rainbow line that I could squash, stretch, and form at my leisure. The pixels could have been made better... but then again, they were extra tedious to make because of the plethora of colors Blissy has.

Page 11:
Voice of Reasons was made next, using the same process as Golden Fox. However his Cutie Mark was completely remade from scratch as there was no proper image to copy and paste.

Page 12:
Next is the beautiful and melodious Sparkle Chord. Same job, same technique. Sparkle Chord was easy and simple to make, but her mark was a completely different note all together...

Page 13:
Keyframe is made next with much the same result. You'll notice that both Key and Sparkle have both moved to make room for their next guest.

Page 14:
Sparkle Chord's friend Keldeo comes in, this time with eyes as oppose to the other characters. Fairly average to make, but his hind legs were a little difficult to pin down.

Page 15:
Last, but most certainly not least, Dr. Wolf and Lady Wolf. Two characters for the price of one. Things turned out a tad bit differently for them than the rest, but it still worked out in the end. Surprisingly, the wolves were not too difficult to make, but the added pixels were still tedious...


And that's how I came to make the over art for #Code_Break. I hope you all enjoyed this little tidbit, and I'll see what I can do about adding some more artworks in the near future. In the meantime, take care!