While I was visiting my family for Thanksgiving, I got an email from an editor at DC, subject line: Potential Cover for DC. As soon as I opened it and realized it was for Supergirl, I was BEYOND ecstatic; knowing the arc that was to be approaching would also have Superboy in it (I am friends with writer/artist Sophie Campbell, as well as colorist Tamra Bonvillain), I knew this my chance to finally draw official Supergirl AND Superboy. Once I had begged our wonderful editor, Brittany Holzherr, to let me draw Connor in his old-school leather moto jacket, and once I let her know that I was the one who had requested Kara wear a leather moto jacket in the New Year’s issue (drawn by Joe Quinones - go pick it up!), she suggested I draw both of them in leather jackets - which like…bro 🥹🥹🥹
And so I quickly got to work doing layouts! I did a bunch of them in record time - usually I will only give about three options for layouts, as I don’t wanna over-inundate anyone or cause myself any undue artistic burden - but in this case, I couldn’t stop trying new things! I technically did seven layouts, tho I dropped one of them because I unconsciously stole her pose from a recent Halloween-esque cover, and I had dropped another one because I honestly just didn’t think I would be able to draw it correctly, despite it being maybe the most dynamic of the options.
Above not pitched for being too similar to an already-published cover
Above not pitched for being too challenging
Looking back at them now, I honestly think we made the right call, but I still really like some of the poses and vibes I gave them in these other layouts. The one we chose was actually a last-minute addition, because I was trying to think of something that was less of a scene and more graphic, and I thought of Sergio Toppi’s incredible artwork which inspired my own piece that was featured in DC’s 2024 Pride issue:
I had made a decision that I was going to start drawing a lot of my covers - especially the ones for bigger properties - traditionally, since it would allow me to have a physical object to sell (I am a pretty poor person, and published comics paychecks will only take you so far!). So the goal for my process became: draw the pencils digitally in blue-line, print them on 11x17 Bristol board at FedEx, take those home, ink them, take them BACK to FedEx, scan them, and then go home and color the file. It actually basically worked perfectly, but it was a huge fucking pain in my ass to just go all over town for the tiny purpose of scanning or printing some art (hopefully as time goes on, I will be able to afford a printer/scanner combo, which will make my workflow SO much faster).
Blue-line pencils
WIP inks
Inks raw scan
You’ll notice that the raw inks look a bit different from the finished product, and that is because I had certain things I just really needed to fix or alter digitally; that being the case, here is the edited line-work:
The changes are often subtle, but they’re there for the eagle-eyed of y’all!
After lines, it was finally to color! I did Kara and Connor on separate layers just so the colors of their leather jackets didn’t confusingly overlap and make my coloring job a pain in the ass.
Combined flats
Flats with color-holds on specific lines, different multiply layers for Connor and Kara, and blush
After this, it was just the highlights, and then there we go! 🥹 I decided to highlight them very differently like they were hit with different light sources, just so we would keep Kara in the spotlight. I also decided that the blue of her shirt was so strong that it might reflect under her chin and nose, and even into her eyes - thus adding a bit more dimensionality to the finished piece ☺️
The way I color has changed drastically since I drew this in December, and so upcoming covers will look quite different, usually.
Honestly, I had a huge blast working on this; while not my first cover for DC, this is the first one that will be released, and I was basically given almost carte blanche to do whatever the fuck I wanted. I love it when that happens. This cover also continues the trend of every cover I have done for DC including some nice leather on it 😌😌😌
What do you all think? Do you like getting to see all the steps in the process laid out like this? Do you feel like this is worthwhile to learn what goes into the work I and other comic book artists do? I hope it sparked some joy within you, and that you will pick it up when it hits comic shops in May 😌🙏