Catching Up on Covers: Sonic the Hedgehog

Hey guys! Here's a buncha' Sonic the Hedgehog covers I've colored for Archie Comics in the last few months. Hope ya' enjoy!

 The cover to Sonic the Hedgehog #246, drawn and inked by Tracy Yardley. It's a Knux versus Thrash smackdown and it's gonna' be epic. Ya' know, when you get a cover as ink heavy as this one - as a colorist you think "Man, the heavy lifting is done for me! This is gonna' be a breeze!" Actually, these are some of the harder images to color, I find. These are cartoony characters, after all - so you gotta' figure out how to make that deep, dark contrast work!

The first cover by our newest penciler on the crew, Lamar Wells. Friggin' love this guy's style. No before/after on this one - all of the elements in this piece were seperate pieces that were rendered and shuffled around. Final placement on the cover is different from this, in fact. Sonic and Mecha Sally are my favorite parts! Cover to Sonic the Hedgehog #247. Inks by Terry Austin.

It's the Sonic/Mega Man crossover we've all been waiting for! Was so pumped when this Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante piece showed up in my queue. Cover to Sonic the Hedgehog #248.

Cover to Sonic Universe #50's landmark issue. This was a pretty fast turnaround for Spaz (pencils/inks) and myself. Much of the great metallic texture on this guy was already there in the inks, so I didn't have to do much. Love that we went with a reference to a scene in the Sonic OVA for the background's color scheme, too!

The cover to Sonic Super Digest #3. Another piece by Lamar, with inks by Kent Archer. Anybody notice that this series uses the original models for these characters (or something close to it)?

Last one! Cover to Sonic Super Special Magazine #7, drawn by Lamar with inks by Gary Martin, celebrating 20 years of Archie Sonic comics! Man, how the time flies! Sonic is on a layer above the background characters. Not sure if the BG art will be used in the 'zine interior art. Hope it is - there's alot of cool details you just can't quite make out in the full cover!

Sonic the Hedgehog 244 Cover

Hey guys! Wanted to share with you the raw artwork to Sonic the Hedgehog #244, drawn by Tracy Yardley with inks by Terry Austin. This one was alotta' fun to color - especially punching up Thrash's sonic-scream attack with those motion blurs!

Sonic the Hedgehog 243 Cover

Hey guys! Since the official solicits for November issues just came out, I suppose it's all right to share with you the raw artwork for some of these amazing covers I got to color! Here is the raw art for Sonic the Hedgehog #243, from Archie Comics. Pencils and inks were done by Tracy Yardley!

Sonic the Hedgehog 241 Cover

Hey guys! Just wanted to share with you the raw artwork to the recently solicited Sonic the Hedgehog #241 cover that I colored, from Archie Comics! I had a great time with this one - it's a "big hero moment" with all three of the current Freedom Fighting teams together.

Artwork by Tracy Yardley (pencils) and Terry Austin (inks). 

Sonic Anniversary

Yes! I finally managed to sneak in a few extra hours of coloring last week on this piece and get it done! It was super refreshing to work on my own thing start-to-finish again, and I'm very energized by the idea of getting a few more pieces like this done and ready to do maybe a convention or two later in the year.

It may be the year after now, but happy 20th, Sonic the Hedgehog! 

Sonic the Hedgehog 236

And here's a preview of this month's Sonic the Hedgehog. Be sure to pick it up!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #236

"Cry Freedom!": The Freedom Fighters are no more. Dr. Eggman moves on to terrorize a Mobius unopposed. King Naugus rules through a campaign of fear. But Sonic isn’t about to let all that stop him! A new era is about to begin as two new teams burst onto the scene to save the world! The future begins today in this great jumping-on-point issue!

Script: Ian Flynn
Art: Tracy Yardley!, Terry Austin, John Workman and Matt Herms
Cover: Tracy Yardley!

Shipping Date: 4/18
On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops: 5/2
32-page, full color comic
$2.99 US.



Look Back: Sonic the Hedgehog 227

Hey guys! Since we missed last month, here's a second dose of colorist's retrospective this month with Sonic the Hedgehog #227, the second part of the "Genesis" story arc. This ish spotlights the last few levels of the original Sonic 1 game, and this sequence in the Labyrinth Zone is one of my favorites!

Water effects! How cool are those?? Separating all those bubbles was a pain-in-the-butt... But well worth it, I think. This was also the first ish I worked on after downloading this awesome flatting software, which is a totally must-have for colorists! It has definitely cut down on work time for me!

Speaking of flats, I went with some pretty flat colors underwater - an effect that I would refine more in some later issue of Mega Man.

These were some of the earliest pages I remember seeing in "layout" form when we were gearing up for "Genesis." Truth be told, Patrick's layouts were incredibly detailed - they looked practically like finished pencils! Definitely pick up the "Genesis" hardcover, on sale now - I hear that there are a few "process" extras that show the pages through layouts, pencils, inks/letters and colors!

Sonic the Hedgehog 235

Check out a peek of this month's Sonic the Hedgehog, from Archie Comics! I'm very proud of this one - kinda' a breather issue without as much non-stop action, which means lotsa' quiet moments in a whole buncha' different environments and color palettes! Make sure not to miss this one!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #235

"Remember the Fallen." The Freedom Fighters are torn apart in the fallout from last issue. Sonic and his friends must deal with the loss in their own way, and it will change the team forever. When Silver the Hedgehog arrives looking for "the traitor," will the weary Sonic give him a chance to speak?
32 pages, $2.99.

Sonic 238 Cover

Hey guys! Thought I'd share the raw artwork for Sonic the Hedgehog #238's cover. (Pencils by Tracy Yardley, inks by Terry Austin.)

June 2012 Solicits

Hey guys! Here are a couple books I'm coloring that'll be coming out in the month of June!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #238

"Loyalty" Part Two: The clock is ticking as Sonic leads Team Fighters on a desperate rescue mission! Two nations stand on the brink of war, and long-time ally, Lupe, is set to be legionized! Meanwhile, the "Unraveling" storyline begins as Mina's concert of hope draws the ire of the evil Ixis Naugus!

Script: Ian Flynn
Art: Tracy Yardley!, Steven Butler, Terry Austin, John Workman and Matt Herms
Cover: Tracy Yardley!, Terry Austin and Matt Herms

Shipping Date: 6/20
On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops: 7/4
32-page, full color comic
$2.99 US.

MEGA MAN #15

"Spiritus ex Machina" Part Three: Time is running out for Mega Man and his friends. A new twist catches both heroes and villains off-guard, and putting Dr. Light and everyone at the A.R.T.S. in mortal danger! Meanwhile, Dr. Wily’s growing army in the Amazon discovers a certain red-and-grey robot…

Script: Ian Flynn
Art: Jonathan Hill, Gary Martin, John Workman and Matt Herms
Cover: Ben Bates

Shipping Date: 6/27
On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops: 7/11
32-page, full color comic
$2.99 US. 

Look Back: Sonic the Hedgehog 226

Hey guys! So the shiny new hardcover (The first in the history of the Sonic comics!) collecting last year's "Genesis" story arc is due out this month. Perfect timing, as this month's colorist commentary retrospective also looks back at the first ish in that story arc!

So the "Genesis" story arc was a tie-in to the epic 20th anniversary celebration-bonanza - in fact, the storyline concluded the same month as the release of the Sonic Generations video game! (Which had its own unrelated, "Another time, another place" back-up story.) And to properly celebrate, the two titans of Sonic the Hedgehog penciling - Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante and Tracy Yardley - tag-teamed the books from breakdowns to finishes. Meanwhile, I was gonna' be coloring Sonic Universe...

...Yeah, so originally I was scheduled to move over to Sonic Universe after I wrapped up Sonic #225. The plan was for SU's cover colorist, Ben Hunzeker, to take over for the "Genesis" arc and I would resume my colorist duties on the core book upon the conclusion. Schedules didn't quite work out, however, so "Genesis" was mine after all (and I also took over Ben's SU cover color chores while he was stationed in Japan).

Thankfully, I got about a month's heads-up about this change-up. Everone wanted "Genesis" to be a very different looking book from what had come before, which gave me #225 to really loosen-up and set the tone. The rendering style here in "Genesis" was supposed to be unique to it, but I got so comfortable with it and satisfied with the results that it has stuck around!

You know what's not easy to color? Video game backgrounds. In the most unique challenge in this story arc was the hours of research looking at screenshots and watching playthroughs on YouTube to make sure I got all of the details - which were plentiful, especially at the start of the story arc - right. The 16-bit graphics were hyper-saturated and bold and intense and re-creating that aesthetic on a sequential field was a nightmare! You want it to look like the games, bu-u-ut... It still has to be read-able. Figuring out that balance between accuracy and story-telling was a hard line to walk!

May 2012 Covers

Here's some of the raw artwork for covers I colored up last month! Each of these covers was kinda' dark and ink-heavy, which was a pretty neat exercise in keeping it simple to let the inking set the tone and do the heavy-lifting.

LEFT: Sonic the Hedgehog #237, penciled by Tracy Yardley with inks by the legendary Terry Austin, is an awesome and bold design. Tracy, as always, is spot-on perfect in his rendering of these characters. The bold design and the strong black on our protagonists really let me keep the colors on the characters simple.

MIDDLE: Mega Man #14, penciled and inked by Patrick Spaziante. Now this one definitely required a bit more planning. The design concept here came in part from an illustration by Hitoshi Ariga (the acclaimed author of Japan's Rockman MegaMix manga) featuring Wily and his massive army of Robot Masters. (This illo is featured in the Mega Man: Official Complete Works art book from Udon, by the way - a must-have for any Mega Man fan and quite possibly my favorite-est business expense ever!) It's very silhouette heavy with alot of great crimson-tones to it, making this quite possibly the most determined and bad-ass we've yet to see of Mega Man! (And Rush looks pissed.)

RIGHT: Stan Lee & The Mighty 7, artwork by Alex Saviuk. I'd had the honor of doing some concept art colors for a number of Stan Lee related projects in 2010/2011, so I was thrilled to get to help out with this cover! Alex's artwork is a huge departure from the more cartoony styles featured in Sonic and Mega Man, so it was alot of fun to work outside my comfort zone with a more traditional comic book super hero aesthetic.

Look Back: Sonic the Hedgehog 225

It's February 2nd! So how about we celebrate 'Hog Day with a little colorist's retrospective on last year's major milestone, Sonic the Hedgehog #225.


2011 was a whirlwind of a year and marked the 20th anniversary of Sega's speedy, bouncin' blue mascot. And what an anniversary! In perhaps a grand coincidence, Archie's two Sonic the Hedgehog licensed books would be celebrating milestone issues that year: Sonic Universe's 25th, and Sonic the Hedgehog's epic 225th. (Every 25 issues tend to be a "milestone" in the comix biz, usually celebrating the start or end of a story arc or introducing a major change to the status-quo.)

As a colorist, I'm usually last to the party as far as storylines go. I'd known a general outline of things to come from a late and rambly night at Heroes Con one year when writer Ian Flynn detailed to myself and Archie production-er Jon Gray his diabolical plans... But that was, like, nearly 1.5 years ago before this issue landed on my doorstep for colors. Something could have changed.

Over the phone, my editor Paul informed me that this was the issue that we were killing off Princess Sally. ...Sorta'. Actually, to commemorate the 20th Anniversary, this issue was going to launch us into a retro-themed flashback to an alternate reality Mobius for a four issue arc. True to the biz, this milestone was gonna' be the big game-changer leading into the next few years: Eggman's back. The Death Egg is back. Naugus is looking to be crowned king and Sally's fate is...? All would be revealed just a handful of months later.

Production-wise, this was also a game-changer. I had just come off a wicked month in which I was sick-as-a-dog and desperate to meet a deadline. With Mega Man poised to enter the monthly schedule soon I needed to scale back my nit-picking and get fast-'n'-loose. This was Sonic, after all - have some energy in those colors! After nearly two years of doing this, things finally started to click. Sonic was the blue I wanted him to be, and everything else was falling into place just how I liked.

I think there is a noticeable difference - an improvement - from #224 to #225. And I'm fiercely proud of this anniversary issue. 200 books ago I was nine years old and reading Sonic versus Metal Sonic, based on the hit Sonic CD video game that had just come out. Working on the book I grew up reading never gets old.

Sonic the Hedgehog 233

Hey all! Here's a preview of this month's Sonic the Hedgehog #233 from Archie Comics!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #233

Written by Ian Flynn, art by Steven Butler, Terry Austin and various, cover by Ben Bates.

"The Trial of Geoffrey St. John." Fresh from the epic "Babylon Rising" arc in Sonic Universe, Sonic and Tails investigate the fate of their enemies before hurrying home for the trial of their former ally, Geoffrey St. John. How did this international man of mystery become an Ixis wizard? Where do his true loyalties lie? The answers fans have been demanding finally arrive!

32 pages, $2.99.