The first time I saw this comic at Oxford, I squealed while jumping up and down, with a heaping side of uber girly flailing.  Not one of my more composed moments. But this was the first cover piece that has gone public since we started working with the awesome Felipe Massafera; so cut me some slack.

Although I was first drawn to Felipe’s art because his style is very reminiscent of the comic master Alex Ross (who’s art originally inspired me to get into superhero costuming). His personal artistic style, and realistic feel made me pick up his comic covers and take notice of his work. So when given the chance to pose for a few of his covers, I jumped at the chance.

Working with Felipe starts with a sketched thumbnail like this . He lets us know where he wants the light source(s) to come from (he loves dramatic and harsh shadows), how he wants the character(s) positioned, and the basic shapes of the costumes. Most of the time, we have the exact costumes he requires, but sometimes (like below for Arisa and Sodam Yatt) we have to make due with clothing on hand. We shoot variations of the pose, with close ups of the face, hands and any props he may need in our improvised home studio and send them off to him in Brazil.

A few weeks later, we get this..

from this…

I really do love my job. Helping create art (in any capacity) truly makes me happy.  Stay tuned, more to come soon!