Vol 2 cover - background 1

Blog posted by Ste Pickford on Sun, 09 Nov 2014
Subject: Plok comic strip

Now for colour! From this point on all the work is done in Photoshop (I'm still on CS5), using scanned and cleaned up versions of the inked drawings.

I wanted to the cover to be of a slightly higher quality than the strips themselves, so I wanted to avoid most of the background being a flat expanse of lurid green. Even a green gradient I though would look a bit cheapo, so I decided to use a subtle texture to break it up a bit.

I started off with a texture from my library of 3D stuff, which I think was a rusty metal or something, and messed about with it using the levels and contrast in Photoshop, and made it monochrome, then used it as a mask for an adjustment layer altering the levels of a flat green colour. I then added a a gradient, going darker to the top, and another radial gradient of lighter colour centred on where the crater will be at the lower centre.

I actually spent ages and ages messing about the with strength of the texture effect, altering it many times as I worked on the rest of the background. What you see here is the finished strength of the effect, which is probably quite different to what I started with.

Tags: plok, ebook, cover, volume 2, process, drawing, colour, photoshop, texture

Follow up post: Vol 2 cover - background 2

Predecessor post: Vol 2 cover - inks 2

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