Ahoy mateys

Hello my lovelies

So, some of you out there have been wondering what has happened to The Great Frazer Irving International Comicbook Rockstar lately. Well I must confess the past 2 months have been rather hectic, what with me working like a madman on "Azrael" for DC Comics, as well as attending the NYC Comicon in feb, not to mention spending a fair few evenings racing around London's Soho in the wee hours of the morning with a thoroughly Awesome individual with whom I plan to rule the entire Earth alongside in the near future. Fret not, we will be merciful and benign dictators. But no whistling on a Tuesday!!!!

To tease and appease thy thirsts for art, I present to you lucky lucky people here some stages in the production of the latest cover I have made for "The Darkness" from Top Cow comics. Not all secrets are revealed, in fact, seeing as there's no fee for this I might just leave the images lying around with scant explanation. If I can get the html to work then I might make this a regular feature here, so you can all come back and salivate over yer puny laptop screens.

That's the sketch above. Messy, eh? yes, that's what my editors have to deal with. But it captures the essence, and you'll see how it all comes together...

That's the first stage above. This is where I do what is almost the traditional style of inking, where black lines are used to outline and define, with shadows n shit, but it's still far from done...

This is where I use Potatoshop's layers and start adding the greys. This stuff makes it so much rounder and Phatter, don't you think? And I can add more too...

Now here I've added more greys to give it more body and depth and ting. It's like using ink washes but without the pain and screaming.

Now I've jumped a whole buncha secret stages to the point where I have the background added and the colours too, all using my special secret ways. Don't ask, I'll have to kill you afterwards.

And here's the final image. Almost. There were edits afterwards, which those of you who will be buying the comic (not *just* for the cover I hope, but if you do I won't complain) will no doubt spot, but this is the internet, where you get to see stuff that never makes it to the page.

I may do more of this now that I seem to have overcome Bloggers utterly useless tools and got me pix where I wants em. Come find me on Twitter if you haven't already, and watch as I relate every tiny boring detail of my life online, just like everyone else. And don't forget to check out Azrael from DC, issue 2 out late April, issue 3 late May. It sells fast so grab one whilst you can. 

And then expect the resumption of Gutsville. It ain't dead, loyal ones. Just sleeping.

Fraze xoxo