For those curious, here's my process for the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Ghost Variant cover. First I sketched up an idea. We knew we wanted the cover to feature Derpy Hooves, and I wanted to have an interesting background because I knew it was going to be a wrap cover (front and back), so I decided to go with Sugarcube Corner.
I drew up a second design with a different Sugarcube Corner background and added Lyra, as she's one of my favorite background ponies. I used references from the show for both background sketches. The second design was the one I liked better, so I scanned it in and submit it to get approved. Just like when I did the Adventure Time cover, I had to wait patiently for approval before I could start working on the final drawing!
After a little more than a week, Hasbro approved the design but told me I needed to add BonBon. I find this particularly awesome because it's good to see they like to be consistent with even their background ponies being BFFs.
As soon as I was given the greenlight, I basically finished the whole thing in one sitting. I used 11x17" comic paper, used microns for the background and a sharpie for the thick foreground lines. I normally prefer brush and ink, but ponies are so cartoony, I wanted solid lines for this (;
And Voila! The art was scanned and submitted. I had to wait more than a month to hear anything about it and when I did, it had been colored and completed! I can't express enough how hard it was to keep it a secret, especially from my friends that are such huge fans of the show.
To celebrate the release, I will be at Casablanca Comics in Portland from 12pm-3pm Saturday, December 1st. Which is tomorrow!!
I'll be signing and sketching on oodles of covers! Here's a preview:
I will have some prints left over from PortCon Maine to sell for $3 each, featuring Vinyl Scratch, the mane six + Spike, and a human Rainbow Dash! I will also have some original art with me and will gladly draw sketches for those that request it.
The original cover art is going to be put on eBay for auction, for those interested! I will be posting on both Twitter and Facebook when they go up. There is a chance I won't be able to post about it on my blog here due to my computer being wonky lately.
This 3 foot cardboard cut-out of Spike is excited to see you tomorrow!
