Jurassic Park Cover!!

In celebration of my Wedding Day(yes, I'm in Vegas getting married right now) I'm sharing with you my latest cover and the process behind it.

"When Dinosaurs ruled the Earth!!"

Every cover starts with a series of sketch concepts. IDW Editor, Justin Eisinger both agreed that the last sketch was the strongest. A T-rex roaring in your face is a hard book to ignore. there were a few changes made to it. Nothing in the story takes place in NYC (I just really wanted to paint a dino on the East River for ssome reason), so I had to change the BG to a jungle. I also thought some additional elements would be nice so I aded some Brachiasaurus and Pteradactyles.

After the sketch is approved, I project it onto a large peice of watercolour and trace it. and the painting begins.

First I get the background out of the way. This allows me to be a little sloppy because I can clean it up when I start painting the midground and foreground elements. 

 next, I take care of all the shadows by filling in with black.

 then I add the colour.

and finally a little lighting flourish in Photoshop. I sinply airbrushed a series of small liness and overlayed a large fuzzy airbrush over it. applied it over the painting on a screen layer and I'm done!