X- Men #19 Cover

Hey Guys,

Here is the step by step process behind the X- Men #19 cover.

For the process of this cover I was asked by the editors to do a jungle scene of the X-men and the Fantastic Four having as reference the 90’s X-men covers. I sent the first layout but the editors wanted a more dynamic angle and composition so we narrowed down to sketch number two.

I set the sketch as a basis and I did a trace over on the cintiq until I got the pencils to the level I wanted.

Now I set the flat tones to start the coloring process. I already had in mind the feeling of the scene so I wanted to have colors that represent a sci- fi other dimension feel that the story has, trying to stay away from the typical jungle scene colors.

I tend to set mid tones and use that as a starting point to go darker and lighter.

Then I set my first step of shadows using a “multiply” layer on top of my basic colors, I also tried to work some of the lightning on the background just to have a quick idea of how I want to whole scene to look.

At this point I started laying the lights just adding a regular layer on top of my shadows but under my pencils. I decided to have two light sources: one coming from the right side as sunlight hitting directly at the characters and the other one coming from the left side as an ambient lighting.

Once I had all my colors laid out I compressed all the layers and worked on top of my single file getting rid of the pencil work.

In this image you can see that result on wolverine’s face. I went over the whole image using this process.

Once I polish the whole image I start adding some light effects like fog and the sunlight on the right as well as a couple of highlight on the metal materials. Then I go over the image to do a bit of color correction until I’m completely satisfied with the final result.

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