Comic Book Finals

Ok, fun only begins to describe this project. Originally I was contacted by a really great company, Shinteki, who do games and puzzles for corporations as well as private events. Defiantly check out their website, it's amazing! So their latest challenge involved creating several faux comic book covers, that's where I come in.

The puzzle will be running until June 6th, and I will post the answer after it's all over and done with. I just couldn't resist posting the images though, because I enjoyed making them so much!

Process wise, I decided that for the sake of efficiency and authenticity I decided to delve into Photoshop to make these. They each had a very similar genesis, starting with sketches/ thumbnails, up to final drawing in some cases, then on to inking, scanning, and photoshop. Very similar to how I assume many comics are made these days.

I wanted these to have a somewhat classic comic look to them, with a dash of pulp, spiced with a little digital pizzaz. To those ends, I worked out some of the stressed features on the images; dog-eared corners, worn spine creases, and faded and stressed edges.

An interesting side effect of streamlining the creative process was I found some unusual color choices, that I wouldn't have made had I done these traditionally. I guess there can be a certain fearless quality to laying down color in the computer, simply because it is so impermanent.

Even though I was using photoshop, I did make an effort to to use too many filters, and to use the effects in photoshop judiciously. Although I may have gotten carried away here and there, c'est la vie.

So, go ahead, these are the clues. I don't know if there was a prompting question on the actual puzzle, but all the information is in the images (or else it wouldn't have worked!) Give it a shot, and send me your solutions, for each correct solution I will give you a free drawing! Deadline's June 6th.