Artist Becky Cloonan is the creator building the atmospheric and moody feeling with her art in the upcoming B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Pickens County Horror series that hits shelves March 28th. She generously gave a little bit of her time to show us her process for the cover of Issue #1.
Thumbnail:
First I start by doing some thumbnails, usually three to five different designs. These are usually pretty small, like two inches high, but they get the idea across. I send them off with any notes I think would be helpful, and Scott gets back to me with which one Mignola likes! At this point I’ll sometimes get some initial notes back too.
Pencils:
When doing the pencils, I had to take into account that the logo for the series was in the upper left, so I shifted everything over to the right a bit. To get a nice diagonal shape in there I added a tree root—between that and the vampire’s hands, there’s some fun shapes going on. I also wanted to make it look totally gross, like with chipped nails and rotten teeth—and if you look closely there are some upside-down crosses in the eyes! Evil! This was also, I think, the first time I’ve had to seriously draw mushrooms, which was kind of fun. Oh, and I usually work on 11 x 17 paper—in this case it’s Dark Horse boards!
Inks:
Aaah, inking! Maybe my favorite part. I knew this cover was going to have a lot of thick blacks on it, so I did some dry brush to give it a bit of texture. Sometimes I zone out a bit while I ink; the whole thing is pretty zen. Inking is the stage I agonize least over!
Colors:
After beaming the files up to Dave Stewart’s ship, he goes about his magic! I love how subtle the colors he uses are. Look at the detail of the veins on the hand, the spots on the mushrooms. The line holds are chosen so masterfully! And those yellow eyes and teeth! I feel spoiled whenever I get to work with Dave.
—Becky Cloonan
