- Our 1st Rough Cover for Clown Town
Amanda, Caesar and I are hard at work on Clown Town pages, since the 12-page story is GUARANTEED to see print, having reached Round 2! Right now, it’s the 4-page sequence required for Round 3 that we’re focused on. Hey, prepare for the best case, right? We’re working the votes, exhausting all avenues to make this happen! Unfortunately, there’s not much we can reveal about these (we think) gorgeous pages on which we’re slaving away, so I’m gonna share with you our process for putting together the rough covers that we submitted for Round 1, including the updated version we posted on our Round 1 thread!
After the story concept for Clown Town began congealing in my brain (oh, picture that…), Amanda and I began tossing around ideas for the cover, since it was ALL we needed for Round 1 besides the pitch. We learned about Small Press Idol 2010 somewhat near the opening submission date, so time was a bit of an issue. I was still working out the abilities and gimmicks of each of the clowns to appear in the story, but I already knew there would be one on telescoping stilts. Thus, Stilts was born, and his seminal image was seen from a perspective near the ground peering up at him towering above and clutching a struggling, inverted victim by the leg. In my original vision, Stilts tipped his own hat in a congenial taunt to the reader that was dismissive of his captive’s panic as the latter was apparently being lowered onto the spiked apex of a mini-umbrella wielded by a much smaller clown below.
- Our 2nd Rough Cover for Clown Town
Over a cool weekend not far from the Gulf of Mexico, we toyed with a few thumbnail sketches but could never get the angles and positioning quite to our satisfaction. So, we did the natural thing: we went for a few rounds of pool at the local bowling alley – our version of “roughing it” – it was like visiting a trailer park without all the danger of a meth lab explosion! After a rousing bout of ::koff::domination::koff:: by yours truly, the fog seemed to lift, and we soon found our way to a corner of the busiest Starbucks in southern Alabama. The image that we submitted as the rough cover was conceived during that hot chocolate and humongoid cinnamon roll indulgence. Oddly, Amanda draws nearly everything of any sort on her Cintiq, but this piece came together so well, and after so many efforts, on paper that I think we were happy just to rely on the scanner. Amanda digitally inked portions of that rough sketch, and we went with it when we submitted for Round 1.
Unfortunately, what we interpreted as “rough” for the cover submission was clearly TOO rough based on the feedback received during Round 1. Fortunately, the SPI Judges saw Amanda’s talent clearly even through the unfinished piece they had to go by (and despite my unwieldy pitch) and dished out unanimous Yes votes to move us on to Round 2! RELIEF! A chance to improve upon an already-evaluated work is truly rare, but we got just that with the opportunity to re-work the rough cover (and the pitch, but that’s another blog…).
Kevin - Modeled Pose for Clown Town Rough Cover
So, the first decision was to preserve what worked and to ditch what didn’t. What didn’t was the small clown and his umbrella. I wanted Stilts’ victim to be in some imminent danger other than just dangling by his leg from the grip of a tall clown (WHACKY!). However, removing the sharp umbrella consequently removed that element of danger. Amanda swiftly – and a little disturbingly – conjured up the notion of having the hat present the needed danger by showing it eager to consume the victim as Stilts waved it before him. A carnivorous hat! Why didn’t I think of that? (pssst…it’s because I’m not off my friggin’ rocker like Amanda…) Thus, the focus of the image tightened to the leering, gesturing clown and his tongue-wagging chapeau contrasted with the flailing, fearful victim who ended up remaining fairly generic because, at the time, the actual character he represents was not fully designed
In the process, the angle at which Stilts and victim were viewed changed, and Amanda asked me to model the pose we’d discussed for Stilts in order to solidify it. An empty wrapping paper tube become the victim’s leg, and my old Colts hat (BOOOOO, Saints!) became the flesh-hungry top hat (if only it were munching on Drew Brees…grrrr….). Amanda spent her fair share of hours locking down the second rough cover with the new parameters, and it is a thing of horrific beauty, at least to us evil clown lovers. Wait’ll you see it with Stitches updated to fully reflect his final design as seen in this thread and the actual victim drawn in, all in full, glorious color beneath our logo! All you have to do is vote us into Round 4! Let’s make it happen!
To vote, visit: http://www.smallpressidol.com/forum/topicview/misc/825.htm
