Making of the second cover of Pepper&Carrot

This cover was painted from scratch with Krita. Here is a little gallery of making-of, and work-in-progress pictures.

Digital sketch

All started with this digital sketch done over a deformed perspective grid and composition guidelines for a vertical book cover.

Mapping the house of Pepper

To make this shot from the interior of the house of Pepper, I also had to map her house, and make it consistent across the episodes. Episode 14 received a little update to be sure the comic would match the new map of the house.

Process:

As you can see in the gif animation under; it was a long and incremental work of speedpainting and then detail with paint-over. But this process was probably the most flexible to keep a control on the render and ambiance of the global artwork.

Testing variations around the theme:

The theme changed a lot during the painting. I wanted to find something funny that communicate instantly the comedy theme of Pepper&Carrot. A big thanks to C.Maloney and Valvin on our IRC channel for the feedbacks all along the process.

First Joke rejected: Cayenne was asking Thyme and Cumin what happen to her broomstick. The clue was subtle the pink ribbon was in the paw of Carrot.

Second Joke: Similar to first one, a bit more dynamic, with scissor to try to make the message more obvious... but it wasn't working.

Joke C : the good old 'Kaboom' explosion gag. But hard to make a relation between the potion
and the explosion. Also, explosion are too aggressive for a pranks... But the final version is just a variation around this theme.

That's all. Thanks for reading this article!
You can see the final artwork in full resolution here.