Knights of the Pendragon!

Currently in Spain surrounded by the most amazing Gaudi architecture. Very inspiring.

This week I thought I would post up my new cover for the Knights of the Pendragon cover and give a little information about the process involved. Knights was the first book I worked on (some twenty years ago) and still remains a favourite with fans. Panini are now intending to publish the first nine issues in one single volume later this year with the remaining volume to follow next year.

I have also included some of the original sketches for the cover with this post. I found it difficult to return to the characters after so long away and the final design was limited by how much of the first half of the story we could reveal. The Red Lord and the Bain were later on in the series and could not appear on this first cover. The final climactic battle with the Green Knight (as great a cover image as that would have been) was also out of the question. The 'Ultimates' inspired group shot (although interesting) failed to excite and a late sketch proposal of a wrap round cover proved difficult for the production as the back cover design had already been approved. So many things to take into consideration.

With so many options in mind I took the decison to draw our heroes (and villian) individually to allow for re-sizing and positioning. This proved very helpful in choosing each character's prominence relative to Captain Britain who was always front and centre. Brady Webb at Panini and myself went through many ideas before settling on the final design shown here... our heroes charging defiantly towards the reader. A fairly simple idea (you may think) but a cover is the singular most important selling point of any medium (be it a cd, magazine or comic book cover) The cover has to be attention grabbing and instantly promote interest in the product and a desire to see more. You can see this logic on any newstand or comic shop shelf.



Very pleased with the final choice of design and thanks again to Brady Webb for his guidance and input and to James Offredi for his colour work.