Book 8 Front Cover (Patreon)

First, have people started getting their Emrakul playmats? I forgot to mention that they were shipped out last week. If you have a cool image of yourself and the playmat, send it to me at cardboardcrack.mtg@gmail.com and I might share it on social media.

For the last couple of days, I've been working on the front cover of book 8. Inspired by William Toenjes' suggestion, I decided to do a quarantine-themed cover (by the way, William, send me your address and I'll mail you a copy of the book once it's done to thank you for your suggestion).

For a more detailed image like this, first I sketch it out in blue:

The reason I use blue is that when I later add black lines, it's easier for my eyes to see how dark the final image will be. If I did the pencils in gray or black, it would trick my eyes into thinking the image was darker, which would cause me to do less shading for the final artwork.

Next I inked our intrepid Magic players and the background:

The zombies were added next. It took me a few iterations to get the zombie feel I wanted. At first they looked a little too silly. Eventually, I was able to give them a more menacing look that contrasted better with the Magic players.

To finish, I added some crosshatching to fill in the white space and also give the zombies a more decaying look.

I'll probably fidget with this artwork over the next couple of days, but I think it's mostly done. The next step is to put together a PDF that is the front cover, back cover, and spine. Then I'll be ready to send the book off to the printer to get proofs for review. Hopefully the book will be available for preorder before too long!