Sunday 29 May 2011

"Aaaaar(my of) Shipmates!"


Is that the worst pun I've ever written? If so, or even if not, I apologise profusely! Moving on, the able crew of Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague bring us a dynamic cover that Ray Harryhausen (or if I was being cheeky, Michael Flatley) would be proud of!

The cover depicts (the aptly named, if again, I was being cheeky) Jack Dancer leading an army of invincible Greek warriors against the legions of Hell, in Ian Edgington and Steve Yeowell's swashbuckling epic, Red Seas. Not bad timing in the week that Pirates of the Caribbean 4 opened at the box office, he's knows what he's doing, does Tharg!

So, let's raise the anchor and set off! Below is Cliff's rough sketch. Though quite the traditionalist in some approaches to his work, Cliff isn't afraid to use Photoshop to facilitate his work flow. I think it's safe to assume that all of the warriors on this sketch are one and the same...


With the composition sorted, Cliff begins to ink. Like many artists, he prints an A3 blue line image (you can see traces of blue if you zoom in on the image below) and inks by hand on top of that. However, again it appears that the soldier was inked separately then digitally added and cloned...


And there's the finished inks, ready to be sent off to the wonderful Mr Teague to be coloured...
And here are those colours. As ever, Dylan has done an excellent job, fabulously bringing the image to life without sacrificing any of Cliff's intricate linework. The dynamic duo strike again!

Thanks yet again to both Cliff and Dylan for sending the various images, two more sturdier shipmates you could never wish to have! Arrrrrr!

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