Super Hero House Pets (Part 2): THE COVER!

My last post detailed the designing of the above characters for a color cover for Fun For Kidz magazine as well as a black & white 4 page comic. Below is my process for creating the cover.

Here's my first sketch. In addition to the characters, the cover had to also include the magazine title, the side blurbs of what's inside and the brother & sister characters who are on every Fun For Kidz cover (I designed them too):

Next I did a rough for the editor & art director on a "mock cover sheet" supplied by the magazine. I wanted the super pet characters to tower over the city as the sister & brother looked on:

I wasn't crazy about the placement of the pets and they were supposed to be Super Hero HOUSE Pets not Super Hero CITY Pets, so I thought I should show houses in a neighborhood instead of a cityscape (D'uh!). So I did a second rough:

The editor & art director approved my second sketch, so I went ahead to penciling. I usually use #2 pencils I buy at CVS and draw it on super smooth Strathmore Bristol Plate 500 series. I don't use a lightbox that often, I like to start my pencils from scratch while referring to my rough to see if I can improve the composition, but I really liked the way the rough was set up, so I used a lightbox to capture the image. Here's the penciled cover:

I inked the image right over my pencil lines with Pigma Micron pens and Rapidographs (this is my favorite part):

I scanned the ink image into Photoshop and colorized it. I filled the large areas and used the paint tool for highlight colors. I used layers a couple of times too, like when I made the lightening bolts coming off the cat:

Here's how the cover will look on the newsstands when it comes out in September. I added a dummy titile & side blurbs as well as a speech balloon for the boy to help explain what the heck is going on:

 

The 4 page comic isn't due until mid to late summer, so I'll post that as well when it's done!