In today’s blog, I’m going to discuss the cover for the upcoming Iron Kingdoms Unleashed. This illustration was a collaborative effort between Andrea Uderzo and Néstor Ossandón. When we originally conceived the idea for the cover art, we knew we wanted a big bar fight scene where a group of non-city/town dwellers were wreaking havoc. During the initial discussion, I wanted Andrea to do the line art and Nestor to handle the paint.

If you read my previous blog about the LEVEL 7 [Omega Protocol] cover art, the steps remain the same; unlike the LEVEL 7 art, of course, this piece was split between two different artists. Andrea Uderzo was handling the line art chores, so we’ll focus on that to begin. As per the normal workflow, Andrea sent me a few thumbnail sketches for us to choose from. All three of Andrea’s sketches had merit, but we’re missing a focal point on the center of the front cover. You can see the light cover border treatment ghosted in to show where the spine of the book will be. Everything to the right of the spine text will be on the front cover and the word “Unleashed” as our title text will also overlap art.

Now that you have a bit of an idea of how the front and back covers work out, we can focus on the composition. I really liked Andrea’s idea of a large pipe or bar element resting underneath the spine treatment. Another thing I needed to ensure was that the creatures be the focal point—they should look like they have the upper hand. And this should help you visualize the right side of the art in the red area as be our primary image area, the first thing you see when you look at it on a shelf. I liked the gator being the central focus, and I liked the bog trog appearing in the foreground, but we needed to fill the void in the middle of the composition where the green circle is. Andrea did a few more rough sketches with that feedback in mind, and he sent me these pieces.

Composition A was the one we ultimately chose. At this point, Andrea went to work on the final line art. As this is a very time intensive process, I’ve only included an earlier work-in-progress and his final line art here. We only requested a few adjustments throughout this stage of the process, the first being a change to the running woman’s face. At this point, the line art is ready to be handed off to Nestor to work his magic.

Beginning the color process is pretty similar for most digital and traditional painters. In Nestor’s first work-in-progress, the basic values are established in frame to develop foreground, middle ground, and background. Take note the foreground figures are darkest and the far background elements are lightest. Nestor, like many artists, tends to work from dark to light. This typically establishes very rich dark colors and brilliant lights. Between the initial value block-in and the second work-in-progress, I requested another colored light source to break up the monochromatic look. In the third image, you can see the addition of some smoke/fog to help establish a bit more atmosphere.

The final two images below are after three separate rounds of color adjustment intended to reestablish a focal point in the image. The other issue we have is that our border treatment was competing heavily with the art. At this stage, our Design Director Josh Manderville played a key role with suggested fixes. Some key areas in the illustration had fairly big shifts: the first was making the Ordic guard’s helmet and shoulder pads a lot less orange. The second adjustment was to bring more green to the gatorman. We also modified the screaming woman’s facial proportions and her expression, and we toned down the highlights on her face. Our final adjustment was to brighten up the pygmy troll in the background and the whelp hanging from the ceiling in the foreground on the back cover (left side of the illustration) to make them both more visible.

I hope this small taste of Unleashed whets your appetite for the book, as I always enjoy giving a bit of insight into the creative process for the art. If you’re excited about this piece, you’re in for a real treat: 100 new pieces of art were prepared for Unleashed! I can’t wait for you to see all the hard work that went into developing this book.

If you enjoyed this article and/or you have any requests for art-related Insiders, please let me know on the forums, and in the meantime, stay classy!