Covered Blog Submission

I found the Covered Blog via Drawn.ca and it got me really excited to do one of my own. So I looked through some covers at Cover Browser. I had thought about doing something with monster or superheroes but then I found Girls' Love Stories. These were just classic and different from what had already been "covered". So I chose issue 139. I liked the colors and instantly imagined how I would keep it stylish and then highten the realism. I like the Mary Jane Watson looking girl on the original but wanted to have a cuter, less melodramatic female. I also made the decision to make the towel blank. I like the design on it, but I felt that it was just way too happy and distracting from the color scheme.

I went at this recreation with everything I had. I did pencil drawings of the girl, the background folks, then pieced them together and colored them in Photoshop. I then traced all the graphic aspects in Illustrator.

I thought I'd throw out the original sketches as well.

VHS Cover Redesign 03 - From These Roots (1976)

For my third cover redesign, I picked a VHS box that had barely any sort of box art at all. It was really necessary that I do something respectful for it.
It comes from Scarecrow's Harlem Renaissance section, titled From These Roots. It's directed by William Greaves and is a nice short documentary about the Harlem Renaissance during the "Roaring Twenties".
The image for the cover was inspired by one of the visual artists, Aaron Douglas that was featured in the film. His art had summed up the Renaissance and I felt that his work would be best featured on the cover. So I found the piece below "Creation" and did a vector drawing of it in Illustrator. I then embelished it for the back cover and added text. I was trying my best to do something like what I've seen come out of the Criterion Collection.

VHS cover redesign 02 - Wild Party (1929)

For my second cover redesign for Scarecrow Video, I went with Dorothy Arzner's 1929 The Wild Party. I had watched this film early last year and when I concidered doing this cover project, I knew I wanted to do one for this film. The VHS copy we have isn't that great of a copy. I'd love to see a quality transfer of it on DVD, but until then...

This is what I came up with after testing a few different inking styles (below). I really wanted to show off the awesome showgirl like costume that ends up getting Clara Bow into trouble in the movie. Instead of rendering it exactly like it was in the movie I used the lightning bolts to heighten the design and work well with the simple drawing.

I really had no idea what I was going to do at first, so when I got the right style of drawing the rest was easy.

This is the original sketch that I did based off of a found photo.

My first ink was super tight and detailed. I don't mind this one but I was really unconfident about whether or not it resembled Clara Bow. She's beautiful and people would be able to recognize her if it was done well. If not done well, then it's just a drawing of some girl.

So with my second inking, I tried to loosen things up. A bit too much I think.

This third and final ink was WAY looser and more fun. I liked the minimal lines and I was able to get the curves that I wanted. For the final design I took out all the crappy lightning bolts and digitally colored it in Photoshop. I just went with my gut on the colors for the cover. It's a black and white film, but I wanted the cover to be nice and appealing. Blue is calm and helps keep the design looking clean and fresh. From what I've seen in posters, Clara Bow had shocking red hair. So this was a nice becon of contrast for the center of the design. The likeness isn't what I'd like it to be, but I think the drawing gives the impression that she's cute and the "Wild Party" isn't a sleazy deal. Here's the original art on day glow pink paper. It's not horrible, but I liked this movie so I was happy to make up something new for this film.