Simon Fraser - Tearing up the rule book!

It looks like Si Fraser has been spending a little too much time with his own creation and his risk-taking, leave it to chance philosophy is starting to rub off on the premier artist! Simon said "This was a tricky cover because I kind of ended up throwing out the rulebook and then winging it. The difference was that I did a greytone version with markers on top of the linework then worked into that with colours in Photoshop..."

The sketch

The greytone version...

Si continues "That preserves some textural information which adds a bit of tooth to the drawing (pun intended!) There was no separate line-layer, so it ended up a bit more 'painterly' than my usual. I've been doing a lot of experiments on the DrawBridge Blog recently (http://draw-bridge.blogspot.com/) and as a result I felt more comfortable trying something a bit different."

Of the finished cover, Simon remarked "It's another Dante grinning with his arms folded cover, like the Army of Thieves & Whores cover I did last year. This might be turning into a theme..." Or maybe the character is getting some of his creators traits too - a confidence that can only come from someone at the very top of their game.

Thanks as ever to Simon, it's a beautifully designed cover with a brave style that really works. 'Spectacular' some would say...