This is the Pencils and Layout of the cover for Issue #2. As you can see I switched the two versions of Myles on either side. I did this, so that Myles in his gentlemanly attire would have the more prominent portion of his apparatus. I did the layout while I was out and about and mistakenly thought it was on the other side.
It is my pleasure to start displaying the pencils for my covers for C.O.G. As an added treat, I am going to pair them with my initial layout designs. A “Layout” is basically a larger thumbnail. Something that is a little more concrete that the stick figures and shadows usually prominent in standard thumbnails. It will give you and sneak peak into my process. ^__^
This is Issue #1’s cover.
Myles Ballantyne is the youngest of 5 children and the only son. He didn’t speak until he was 10 years old, and was considered mentally deficient through most of his early childhood. By the time he was 12, he had invented what would be the initial designs for the airships his company is now famous for. Now, at 19, Myles and his brother-in-law Dr. Cavendish own and run Empyrean Industries, the leading transportation vehicles manufacturers. Myles lives in a world that is catered to his inventing whims and protects him from the hostile forces that are constantly trying to kill him. He’s already considered a national treasure and is perhaps the richest eligible bachelor in the empire. That being said, he is extremely socially awkward and is prone to saying rather blunt, and accurate, things that many may construed as insulting. He would rather be left alone with his work, but for some reason his family feel he needs to socialize and (his sister hopes) marry someday.
Myles is my most complicated character and the one with the most details not only in his design but in personality. He is nearsighted (which means he has no problem seeing things up-close but has a problem with things far away) and he almost definitely has a very mild case of asbergers syndrome. Thus, He doesn’t talk often and has a hard time relating to the social system where bloodline trumps intelligence. However, his world is turned upside-down when Delyth Gwynne is thrust into it.
Delyth is a mysterious welsh maid connected somehow to Myles’s cousin Lord Sherwood. She seems to be in danger from an unknown group of occultist that want her for some reason. Sherwood, determined to keep her safe, asks Dr. Cavendish to hide Delyth in Myles neigh impregnable home “The Fortress.” There Delyth resumes her role as a maid once more. However, the Fortress is not an easy place and nor is its enigmatic master. It doesn’t help that that she only seems to add the chaos, as strange happening seem to follow her.
Delyth’s design is by far the easiest. She poped in my head and was realized on the page seamlessly. As Delyth is from a very low social caste, the dress you see her here is her Sunday best and only nice dress. The rest is mostly the plain black of a working maid.
Rosejack’s full name is Catalina Alexandra Rosejack, however, no one calls her by her given names. Her father was a wealthy Scottish merchant and former pirate. Her mother was a Caribbean spanish beauty much younger that he. Rosejack is already a legend when the story begins, with a long list of adventures, conquests and stories told about her. She defies all convention, ignoring the station of women as willfully as she does common decency. She loves risks and danger, using everything in her arsenal to achieve her goal weather it be her blades or her abundant sexuality. When the story begins she has been working for Myles for a few years. It is worth her while, as Myles is constantly under attack and be provides her all the best weapons and gadgets a girl can ask for.
Rosejack was one of those characters that just sort of leaped into existence in the mind and just up and roared when you put pen to paper. I always knew red was going to be her color. With a name like ‘Rosejack’ could it be anything else?
Dr. Cavendish was born in the in the United States to a British father and and Native Indian mother. He spent the first 10 years of his live with his mother’s people where he learned to track, hunt, ride a horse and more. After his mother’s death, his father took him away from that life and brought him to Chicago. There he was highly educated and graduated with top marks form medical school. However, Cavendish did not go into practice, as his father wanted, instead, he joined the Pinkerton Agency and became an expert tracker of criminals and solver of crimes. At his father’s death, he inherited some money and went to his father’s country, Great Britain. After a variety of circumstances, he found himself introduced to Jane Ballantyne, the eldest sister of Myles Ballantyne, and after a few years they were married. They currently have 3 children. Dr. Cavendish also was Myles’s principle financial backer for his invention and the two eventually created the company called Empyrean Industries. Cavendish runs the more business aspects of the company, allowing Myles to focus exclusively on the invention side. It is Dr. Cavendish that bring Miss Delyth Gwynne to the Fortress and installs her as a maid there. He is one of the few members of the Ballantyne/Cavendish contingent that know Delyth’s secrets.
Dr. Cavendish is based loosely on Mr. Darcy from Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. While Darcy’s time is well over a 100 years before the one in this tale, they basic archetype is the same. Thus, he was designed with a certain level of style at all times. He doesn’t advertise his mixed heretage but doesn’t hide it either. Thus people usually mistake him for being vague “Mediterranean,” lol!
Now it’s Eddie Youngblood’s turn to take the spotlight.
Eddie was born a gutter rat. His mother (now dead) was a whore from Leith, the port city outside of Edinburgh. He speaks with a pronounced brogue that is more street than highlander. He is only 14 when our tale starts and he has been in Dr. Beaumont’s service for the last 2. How he came about the position of henchmen to the sniveling Beaumont is a mystery. Eddie is extremely bright and a brilliant inventor with natural talent. The staff he carries was created by him and has a number of functions, all of which even his master doesn’t know. He as a certain level of contempt for Beaumont, but he sees it as a means to an end. He has a particular venom for Myles Ballantyne, the other young brilliant mind of his age who was born with everything and Eddie nothing.
Eddie was originally NOT supposed to be in these initial design pin-ups but I liked his design so much that I added him anyway.
Here is Mrs Applegarth in her full color glory.
Mrs Applegarth was made a widow at a very early age and still wears black to symbolize her grief and her desire to never marry again. She also lost a son when he was a still a toddler. She is a native to Scotland, and it actually from a very rural highland area. She speaks with a profound scottish brogue. She is in her 50’s and has worked for the Ballantynes for almost 20 years in some capacity or another. She was initially brought in as a nurse to tend Myles’s mother during her pregnancy. She is currently Myles’s housekeeper and primary “babysitter.” She treats him more motherly than the usual servant/master relationship typical of their differing station. She also runs the Fortress’s day in, day out affairs. She is the one that Delyth is entrusted too when she is brought to Myles’s home. Mrs. Applegarth is unaware of Delyth’s secrets. Then again, Mrs. Applegarth has secrets of her own.
Incidentally, Mrs. Applegarth was one of the hardest to design. Her color scheme eluded me and she really didn’t come alive until I started coloring her. She’a a mix of black with grey and purples. Lavender was considered “Half-morning” for a long time, however it was also a color adopted by the suffragettes.
Here is the actual masthead, which means title, of the comic. I used the Empyrean logo as a base and worked from there. I hope to make a font shortly based on the text within the gears.
I know I said I probably would not make technical designs for these, but It seems I lied, lol!
Here is Myles’s spectacles in all their design worthy glory. I did this ultimately because it was becoming clear I needed to know more about them considering how many times I draw them. Yes, the “shades” portions of the specs are red normally but he can, and does, switch the glass when it suits him.
C.O.G. Chronicles - The Graphic Novel 