Cover sketches

For your viewing pleasure... Rough cover ideas for 3 of the first four books in The Olympians. The Glory of Hera was not available at press time...

In the beginning...

Above is a finished black-and-white page from my upcoming graphic novel on the life and times of Zeus, king of the gods. This particular scene actually takes place before the birth of Zeus, right after his father, the Titan Kronos, has taken a sickle to his own father, Zeus' granpa, the Sky (also called Ouranos, or Uranus). The blood of Ouranos rains down over the Earth (Zeus' grandma, by the way), and everywhere it touches, new life comes forth. From left to right, we see the birth of the gigantes, the nymphs, the Furies, and in the final panel, a puffy pink cloud that will eventually form into Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Watch for a color version soonish, and some more black and white pages even more soonish.

Oh, and a big published thank you in Zeus to anyone who can help me think of a suitable subtitle for this book. I think Zeus is a fine title , but it just needs a little something else...

And on the eighth day he said let there be color...

So what we have here is my first attempt at coloring the page from Zeus I posted up a few days ago. The big guy is the Titan Kronos, Zeus' dad. Zeus is the little guy getting eaten, while his mom Rhea looks on, distraught. And you thought your family had problems...

Actually the page is not 100% complete yet. I'll still be tweaking it here and there, and I still need to color in the plant that falls from Zeus' waistband in panels 3 and  4; I'll probably replace this image when I finish that.  Aside from that, what do you think?

Zeus!!

Check it out. This is completed black and white artwork for a "tryout" page for my upcoming graphic novel about Zeus. Zeus has just decided to confront his father, the Titan Kronos, about the fact that Kronos had eaten Zeus' siblings. As you can see, it maybe didn't go so well.

This is a tryout page because I have a couple of different ideas about how I would like to color this book. One option is simple computer coloring, think Dave Stewart's work on Hellboy or DC the New Frontier; the other option, that I'm hoping pans out, is that I'll be able to print this image onto some watercolor paper and create the color with some good ol'-fashioned paint washes. I think I should be able to get some pretty nice textures that way. Watch for color versions soonish.