Nick Mag: The Comic Book 3D Cover

I was going through the magazine tearsheets and realized I hadn't posted the 3D cover we did for The Comic Book section of Nickelodeon Magazine. I thought I'd look for the original art and post that as well, so, here you go.

I wanted to make sure the cover had some depth to it for the 3D process, and chose a downward-looking bird's-eye angle. I probably shouldn't have chosen a city below the figures, but I thought it would make for a cool effect. I probably should have pitched the scene as taking place in space, and let some planets and meteors set different levels of depth behind the characters. I'm happy with how it came out but it took a lot of time.

As you can see I did a series of layouts in blue, then red pencil, then tightening lines and forms up a bit with a regular pencil. The first layout was for the proposed cover, the other layouts pull the various elements and planes out for tightening (again, in blue, red and regular pencil). The city background was the biggest step and took up most of the drawing time. I basically drew it (and the other images) three times, layout/pencils, penciled tighter on the lightbox, then inked. I didn't have the guts to wing anything on the cover, I definitely over-ached it. I'd never done anything for 3D print, I had no idea how it would look and wanted to make sure all the art was clean and controlled. Which is why I pulled the layout apart, tightened the elements up separately, and then traced them to the board and inked the finished art. I could have done the figures on one board, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to isolate them all so I could concentrate on each "level" as its own thing.

(Another reason I did the background separately -- besides the main reason, which was to make sure it worked cleanly behind the figures, and they could be moved around on it if necessary -- was the hope that I could recycle it for a later piece. Possibly something for a Kid Blastoff or Biff-Pam-Pow! comic or cover. I never got around to using it again.)

Sarah combined the elements together digitally for the finished line art. I don't remember how the coloring was handled. I don't know anything about color production, let alone 3D printing, and I'm not going to look it all up. I know the 3D glasses have the blue and red lenses, I think there are blue and red version of the art that are put together for the effect, my eyes are bad and I am color-ignorant so I'm not sure where the yellowish-green color comes in. It's the dominant color throughout the section (the entire comics section was printed in 3D for this issue, and a pair of 3D glasses was included. Were included? I'm not looking that up, either).

The 3D effects were all done by Ray Zone, a name you might remember from numerous 3D comics he worked on, beginning in the 1980s.

The original art for the background is app 10" x 12" on 11" x 14" board. The other inks were done on similarly-sized Bristol board. Layouts were the same size as the finished pieces.

The 3D cover and section appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine #138 ( March, 2008). It was the second and last cover we did for the magazine. One of these days I'll pull out the magazine files and start scanning the gag panel cartoons we continued to do for them (also some licensed comics I worked on for them).

More, soon, later.