Rowan's Claws are coming to town!

Here is a Christmas treat from friend of the blog, the brilliant Jon Davis Hunt. It's a step by step of the circuit-shattering teaser image for Age of the Wolf 2 from Prog 2012! The sequel to this year's snow-covered, werewolf battling extravaganza is once again written by Alec Worley with gorgeous art by Jon. Over to Jon to tell us more...

"This was the original sketch that I did for the teaser, based on the 2nd idea I had. The first idea was a bit more complicated, so I decided to actually save that for a cover." (Can't wait for that! - Pete) "I wanted the teaser to be fairly simple and well, 'teaserish' so figured an iconic shot of Rowan would work best. I also wanted it to be clear that this had moved on from the first story, which was pretty much set in winter and entirely in a blizzard, so added in the leaves and foliage. I thought this would kind of make Rowan herself appear 'wolfish', peering out from the undergrowth like a predator."

"I initially inked the face first, just to get the dimensions spot on. This piece was done entirely in Photoshop, so I didn't bother worrying about the hair and leaves at this point as I new I was going to draw them on a separate layer." (I absolutely adore this image, deceptively simple and so beautiful - Pete)
"I then added in the hair and Rowan's iconic hood which gives her a kind of kick-ass Red Riding Hood vibe. The hair I drew on a separate layer and then filled in with white so that it sat over the previous inks for the face."
With the stunning inks done, Jon begins the colouring process - "Flat colours were then added to get my palette correct."
"And then I added form and shading to bring the colours to life a bit more..."
"Finally, I drew in the leaves on a host of layers, using a slight blurring effect on several to add depth. I then lit the scene to give a sense of sunshine falling through undergrowth. Looking at it now, I could probably have done with adding some volumetric lighting effects too. Curse you hindsight!!!!!!!" Thanks to Jon for sending those beautiful images. I for one can't wait for the AOTW2 as the first book was easily one of my stand out strips of 2011. Alec Worley is easily one of the best horror writers around at the moment (his 3hriller was terrifying!) and Jon's cinematic artwork always blows me away.

Still, I've got to agree about the volumetric lighting in the final, tut tut (Pete scurries away to find out what on earth volumetric lighting effects are...)