The Making of Vincent Price Presents- Issue Seven (March 09)
Cover by Joel Robinson

VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS is a monthly title from Bluewater Productions, Inc.in association with the estate of film icon Vincent Price. The series will feature the iconic Price in a myriad of roles including host, muse, background player, and protagonist. My name is Joel Robinson and I create the cover, Vincent's into, outro and movie pinup each issue.

This particular cover I had an idea immediately. Bluewater's President Darren Davis wanted a cover reminiscent of Roger Rabbit in combining real actors with cartoon counterparts. He told me the story was about a skunk and would take place in an animated style. The first thing I asked is "Can Vincent cut his head off"? Nothing against the skunk, it just felt right. I could see Vincent in his role from Rappaccini's Daughter sneaking up behind the little booger and lofting off his head. Nothing more than that, the moment before the snip. Sometime ideas appear instantly and sometime you have to fight for them. I was fortunate in this instance.

Below is the initial sketch and was enough to build upon. It is also a way of determining where the Title, Logo, Credits and the all important UPC code will be on the art. I can not express the importance of taking all these items into account.

After that I played dress up. I love working with reference, especially with clothing. This isn't the greatest reference for the coat but I can still make out the dominant folds and creases. The pic works great for the pose and the reference for the gloves and hedge (head) trimmer. Also I found a great reference for Vincent's head and outfit from the movie, Twice Told Tales, Rappaccini's Daughter. For this particular comic, reference for Vincent is crucial.

Next I created a line drawing which is visible in the skunk. Vincent's line however ends up completely covered up in the end.

After that it's time to go digital. I use an Aiptek Graphic Tablet and Photoshop 7. I transfer the line drawing to my canvas in Photoshop.

I lay a flat base tone down first and follow it up with shadows and highlights.

I also apply textures to material, skin and hair.

I knew the skunk's scent was going to be green so I decided to use the complementary color of red for the background. And nothing says sinister like red.

The composition has a diamond shape so I decided to emphasize this by adding the lattice in the background to repeat the pattern. Also with the glow effect added on the lattice the background creates a nice op art effect.

I decided to bring the effect down by darkening the background edges. I also added some flowers to break up the negative space that the lattice created. I also added details to the gloves and coat.

I added one last round of highlights and shadows and reflective light (red) on Vincent.

Finally I added a watercolor splatter effect by overlaying a traditional watercolor background. Here is the final piece.

And a close up.

Hope you enjoyed The Making of Vincent Price Presents- Issue Seven Cover. It's been a dream working on this book. I would like to thank Darren Davis at Bluewater and Victoria Price for giving me such an incredible opportunity. And a big thanks to comicmonsters.com for doing such a great job of keeping horror in the spotlight. And of course Thanks to Horror Fans everywhere!!!! You All Rock!!

Vincent Price Presents is a monthly comic from Bluewater Productions. www.bluewaterprod.com.

You can see more of Joel Robinson's art at
www.artpusher.net.

Stay Spooky,
Joel Robinson

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